Labour councillors have begun a campaign for the party to reject a national school funding formula in its next manifesto. Senior local government leaders have written to every council Labour group calling on them to lobby the party’s policy commission to reject calls to fund all England’s schools directly from Whitehall.
They have asked them to back a submission drafted by Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Local Government Association, and Graham Lane, its chair of education, which argues that any reduction of councils’ powers would hamper co-operation between schools and other services and damage local accountability.
