9 in 10 secondaries financially ‘worse off’ than in 2010

More than nine in 10 secondary schools have less spending power than they did in 2010, new analysis suggests.

Mainstream schools would need an extra £4.5 billion a year to restore per-pupil spending power to its 2010 levels, the School Cuts campaign estimates.

Its analysis suggests that 92 per cent of secondary schools are worse off than they were 16 years ago after accounting for cost increases.

And 1,323 schools have experienced a reduction in spending power equivalent to more than £1 million since 2010, it estimates.

The School Cuts coalition, which includes the NEU teaching union, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the NAHT school leaders’ union and the National Governance Association, says the overall funding gap has widened by £300 million over the past year.

It is calling on the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, and the chancellor to increase education spending in the Autumn Budget.

Yesterday the NASUWT teaching union launched a campaign calling on the government to raise education spending to at least 6 per cent of GDP - up from the current level of around 4.1 per cent.

School funding leaves ‘impossible decisions’

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the ASCL, said schools face rising expectations at the same time as funding pressures.

Senior leaders are being left to make “impossible decisions on where to make the next round of cutbacks”, he said, adding that staff are being asked to do “ever more with ever less”.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said funding is “failing to keep pace with rising cost pressures”.

“We know that the new prime minister and secretary of state are ambitious for education, but this ambition must be matched with the resources schools desperately need,” he said.

Long-term pressures on school budgets are contributing to reductions in staffing, curriculum provision and spending on resources and maintenance, the campaign argues.

Julie Simpson, a headteacher in South Gloucestershire, said her school building is “deteriorating at an alarming rate” because the school does not have enough money to pay for general repairs.

“We are forced to choose between building maintenance and essential utility bills,” she said. “We can no longer provide the high-quality education our children deserve.”

Pressure for more cash in Budget

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said it is a “national scandal to have a generation of children that have only known cuts”.

He called on the government to “begin the work of properly restoring funding and turn the page on 16 years of cuts”.

Emma Balchin, chief executive of the National Governance Association, said: “While we applaud the government’s ambition for a sustainable and thriving system, that vision simply cannot be achieved without strategic investment today and in the years ahead.”

£4.5bn funding gap

The figure of £4.5 billion to restore schools’ spending power to the level of 2010 is not an estimate of money actually removed from school budgets over the past 16 years.

The analysis compares current mainstream school funding per pupil with the amount schools would need today to have the same spending power they had in 2010.

It estimates how much schools’ own costs have risen, including teacher and support staff pay, pension and national insurance contributions and non-staff costs, rather than general inflation.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated that total school spending per pupil in 2025-26 was broadly similar to the 2010-11 level in real terms.

However, this measure includes rising spending on special educational needs and disabilities, which the IFS estimates accounts for more than half of the real-terms increase in school funding since 2019-20.