County council leaders have warned the government’s decision to cut a specific education grant used for school improvement services will lead to “academisation by the back door”.
The Conservative-dominated County Councils Network (CCN) has said a government decision to completely scrap the Education Services Grant (ESG) made during the summer will lead to a drop in standards among schools and leave them vulnerable to academy conversion.
The grant is used to pay for school improvement services, as well as funding for human resources, welfare services, maternity pay and special needs pupils, but is to be completely removed for local authorities next August.
Back in 2015, the then chancellor George Osborne announced in the autumn statement that savings of £600m would be made to the ESG, with the grant being gradually phased out. The rationale was that money was only allocated for councils to support local authority run schools and would no longer be needed because all schools were expected to be converted into academies by 2022.
However, the government decided to scrap plans to force schools to convert to academy status last week, but the ESG is still being axed, meaning local authorities will be legally required to pay for schools’ support services without the funding from central government.
The change has led the CCN to warn the government that its cuts to the ESG will amount to “academisation by the backdoor”, as schools will be vulnerable to being converted as a result of poor performance due a lack of available support.
“The complete reduction of the ESG - based on a now discarded Bill - will leave councils with a virtually non-existent budget in which to improve standards. The long term consequences of this are far more damaging than the short-term and only deliver modest savings for the Treasury’s budget,” CCN chairman Cllr Paul Carter, said.
“The government re-thinking the Education for All Bill is a positive step, but the withdrawal of ESG will have a massively detrimental impact on local primary schools and leave councils unable to support academy schools. Was this really the intention behind the decision? You could argue this is forced academisation by the back door.”
The CCN has warned that the decision to cut the ESG will also affect academies. According to its own research, more than two-thirds (68 per cent) of academies bought in school improvement services from their local authority, meaning they are likely to lose out as well.
The CCN added that by next summer, cuts amounting to £800m will have been made to the ESG since 2014/15.
