Following the battle between the education community and the Government during the spring of 1995, there has always been a risk - from the Government’s point of view - that 1996-97 could prove even more difficult.

As things have turned out, schools’ funding for 1996-97 will be somewhat more generous than for the present year. Gillian Shephard’s year-long campaign has paid off: local authorities have been given the freedom (in most cases) to increase their expenditure - in cash - by 2 to 3 per cent in 1996-97. The comparable figure for 1995-96 was 0.5 per cent.

Yet still the local authority associations, teacher unions and schools’ representatives have reacted with horror to the Revenue Support Grant for next year. Cuts, worsening pupil-teacher ratios and reductions in teacher numbers have all been predicted. But will the spring of 1996 bring the same kind of middle-class revolt as took place in 1995?

Looking back on 1995-96, it is now clear that although there was extreme pressure on the budgets of a number of councils, they managed to spend somewhat above the planned total of education standard spending assessment set for the current year.

Table 1 shows the total of SSAs set for 1995-96, council budgets for 1995-96 and the SSA total for 1996-97. The figure in brackets for 1996-97 is the actual total of SSAs, including the effects of deductions to take account of authorities introducing nursery vouchers.

The slightly larger figure takes account of the SSA deducted from the nursery voucher authorities and is thus comparable with the 1995-96 figures.

A number of national newspapers ran stories immediately following the RSG settlement that compared the new education SSAs for individual authorities with their 1995-96 budgets. As table 1 shows, the SSA total for 1996-97 is virtually unchanged from budgets in 1995-96. Thus, many authorities which in 1995-96 are spending above SSA (and several that are not) would have to make cuts to reduce their spending to the level of their 1996-97 SSAs.

But the newly-announced expenditure caps will allow authorities to spend 2 to 3 per cent above their overall 1995-96 budgets. Thus education spending in 1996-97 is likely to exceed the new SSA total by a similar margin. For many authorities, raising their education spending by 2 or 3 per cent should be sufficient to avoid the kind of political reaction seen during the early months of 1995.

Only if the teachers’ pay settlement were significantly to exceed 2.5 per cent would the Government’s mathematics be challenged.

Authority-by-authority education SSAs for 1995-96 and 1996-97 are shown in the larger table, along with the percentage change between the two years for each council. 1995-96 SSAs for Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth, Westminster and Norfolk are not strictly comparable with those for 1996-97 because of the nursery voucher trial. However, the percentage change column does take account of the need to adjust the figures to achieve comparability.

Another difficulty is the structural reorganisation in a number of areas. Several shire counties disappear next year but 1996-97 SSAs are shown for the councils that will be operating in the next financial year. Metropolitan districts, London boroughs and many non-metropolitan counties are unaffected. In all cases, the percentage change column is the Department of the Environment’s best estimate comparison of the new SSA with the one that authority would have received in 1995-96 (whether or not it existed then).

Table 1 showed overall SSA increasing by 4.4 per cent between 1995-96 and 1996-97. Within this overall rise, the non-metropolitan areas and metropolitan districts did relatively better than the average, while London lost SSA. Table 2 below shows year-on-year increases in education SSA for each class of authority in England: Inner London boroughs face a particularly difficult year in 1996-97. Because of changes to the SSA data (notably to the area cost adjustment, which takes account of higher costs in the South-east), and to part of the SSA method relating to special needs pupils and support services, most inner London councils face cash cuts in their SSAs. Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth and Westminster have been cruelly rewarded for their willingness to act as guinea- pigs for nursery vouchers. Only Tower Hamlets, with its steeply rising school population, manages a rise of more than 1 per cent.

Outer London boroughs fare better: Barking and Dagenham’s SSA will rise by 6.4 per cent, with Enfield, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Newham and Sutton all seeing rises of over 5 per cent. Increases in education SSA are relatively common in the metropolitan districts and shire authorities. Among the largest percentage increases are Bury (+6.6), Wirral (+6.7), Rotherham (+6.4) and Calderdale (+6). On the other hand, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle will all have relatively small education SSA increases.

The non-metropolitan authorities include the largest education SSA rise of the year, in Lincolnshire (+7). There are also significant rises in the new unitary authorities of South Gloucestershire (+6.9) and York (+6.8) compared with a newly-constructed version of 1995-96).

Norfolk and north Yorkshire (also adjusted having lost York), will see SSA increases of more than 6.5. South-eastern counties generally have small increases because of the change to the area cost adjustment.

The full range of adjusted SSA changes is from an increase of 7 per cent in Lincolnshire to a reduction of 6.4 per cent in Kensington and Chelsea. Inflation is likely to be 2.5 to 3.5 per cent during 96-97.

Variations in SSA on this scale inevitably have an effect on authorities’ spending. Last year London did relatively well, this year it has done badly. Next year, the shires or the metropolitan areas could be singled out to suffer. The swings and roundabouts of the SSA formula have a greater impact on council and schools budgets than anything local authorities do.

It may have been a better year for education as a whole, but not in every case. There will, as ever, be losers as well as winners.