Treasury takes back £384m school funding announced for academies

Treasury takes back £384m school funding

CREDIT: This story was first seen on BBC News
The money had been announced last year to fund a plan to require all schools to become academies, BBC News reports.
But the Department for Education (DfE) has revealed that when the compulsory academy plan was ditched, the ttreasury took back most of this extra funding.
Heads said this was “outrageous” when schools could not “make ends meet”.
But the DfE said the return of funds was appropriate if a project did not go ahead.
Headteachers in West Sussex, who are campaigning against cuts in spending, wrote last week to all their local MPs asking what had happened to the extra £500m for schools announced last year by the former chancellor George Osborne.
A letter this week from Bristol headteachers to the education secretary, warning about “extreme” funding problems, also asked why the academy funding cash could not be used.
This extra cash was part of a spending announcement to implement the national funding formula and to make all schools convert to academy status.
There had been questions about how much in particular had been provided for the academy plans, and education ministers had told MPs in April 2016 that there was “over £500m”.
But the compulsory academy plan was abandoned after a rebellion by backbench Conservative MPs.
And the DfE now says most of the extra funding earmarked for schools then disappeared back into the treasury.
The department says that the remaining money, in excess of £100m, was spent on other education projects.
Education secretary Justine Greening has faced growing pressure over gaps in school funding.
School leaders say that their budgets cannot stretch to the level of rising costs and have warned of having to cut teaching staff or reduce school hours.
Grammar school leaders have said that they could soon have to start asking for extra payments from parents.
But the DfE says that schools are receiving record levels of funding and that a new funding formula will distribute this more fairly.
Malcolm Trobe, leader of the ASCL headteachers’ union, said that heads would be “extremely disappointed and angry” that the extra funding announced had not stayed in the education budget, when “schools are so hard pushed”.
Jules White, a West Sussex head teacher calling for a budget increase, said his local schools faced a “dire financial situation”.
“It seems extraordinary that money was there for an unnecessary policy initiative, but suddenly not available for children, families and schools that are currently not even just managing to make ends meet.”
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