The coalition government published its response to a consultation on funding arrangements for academy schools in England. It confirmed plans under which the money that had hitherto been paid separately to local authorities and academies for education services should be replaced by a single grant allocated on a simple per-pupil basis.
Source: Replacing LACSEG with the Education Services Grant: Government response to the consultation on funding academies and local authorities for the functions that devolve to academies, Department for Education
Links: Response to consultation | Hansard
Notes: Consultation document (July 2012)
Date: 2012-Dec
An unpublished report, obtained following a freedom of information request, said that schools built under the previous Labour government's school building programme had contributed to 'significant improvements' in pupils' educational performance and attendance. The Building Schools for the Future Programme (BSF) was scrapped by the coalition government shortly after taking office in 2010.
Source: Benefits Realisation Report for the Board, Partnerships for Schools
Links: Report | Building magazine report | Guardian report
Date: 2012-Jul
A paper examined the effect of school expenditure on children s test scores in England at age 16. Evidence was found of a positive but small effect of per pupil expenditure on test scores.
Source: Cheti Nicoletti and Birgitta Rabe, The Effect of School Resources on Test Scores in England, Working Paper 2012-13, Institute for Social and Economic Research (University of Essex)
Links: Working paper | Abstract
Date: 2012-Jul
The coalition government announced the final details of the reform of the school revenue funding system, confirming arrangements to simplify the local funding system for 2013-14. It said that the arrangements were a step towards a national funding formula, which would create a funding system that was 'fair, logical and distributes extra funding towards pupils who need it the most'.
Source: School Funding Reform: Arrangements for 2013-14, Department for Education
Links: Report | Hansard | DE press release | NAHT press release
Date: 2012-Jun
The coalition government announced details of the schools in England that would receive money from the Priority School Building Programme, aimed at rebuilding the most dilapidated schools. Only 261 out of the 587 schools that applied would receive any help.
Source: Written Ministerial Statement 24 May 2012, columns 82-83WS, House of Commons Hansard, TSO
Links: Hansard | CBI press release | LGA press release | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2012-May
Local councils in England criticized the coalition government over 'intolerable' delays in providing the most dilapidated schools with renovation funds. They said that none of the £2 billion earmarked for the Priority Schools Building Programme had yet been paid out, and that councils were having to use their own funds to pay for emergency repairs.
Source: Press release 9 May 2012, Local Government Association
Links: LGA press release | NASUWT press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-May
A report by a committee of MPs said that the system for checking school spending in England was not robust enough. It was not clear how responsibility for ensuring value for money was divided up, particularly in the light of greater fragmentation and diversity in the schools system.
Source: Accountability and Oversight of Education and Children's Services, Eighty-Second Report (Session 2012-13), HC 1957, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | NUT press release | BBC report | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-May
The government began a further consultation on proposals to reform school funding in England. It said that its proposal (in July 2011) for a model involving a national funding formula for the distribution of funds to local authorities had attracted widespread support: but this model would need 'refinement and careful implementation'. In the meantime school budgets would be cut by 1.5 per cent in cash terms in both 2013-14 and 2014-15.
Source: School Funding Reform: Next Steps Towards a Fairer System, Department for Education
Links: Consultation document | Hansard | ATL press release | CCN briefing | LGA press release | NAHT press release | NAHT guide | Labour Party press release | Public Finance report
Notes: Consultation document (July 2011)
Date: 2012-Mar
An article examined the trend in expenditure per student at higher education institutions in 15 European Union countries during the period 1998-2006. There was a tendency towards convergence, which was higher after 2001 – suggesting that the implementation of European-level policies (such as the Bologna Declaration and the Lisbon Strategy) had had an impact not only in the political arena but also at an economic level. The convergence had been driven more by private financial resources than by public ones, supporting evidence for a gradual transformation of the patterns of financing higher education in Europe.
Source: Tommaso Agasisti, Carmen Perez-Esparrells, Giuseppe Catalano, and Susana Morales, 'Is expenditure on higher education per student converging across EU-15 countries?', Studies in Higher Education, Volume 37 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Feb
A paper said that disparities in the way that central funding was allocated to local education authorities in England gave rise to sizeable differences in pupil attainment in national tests at the end of primary school.
Source: Stephen Gibbons, Sandra McNally, and Martina Viarengo, Does Additional Spending Help Urban Schools? An evaluation using boundary discontinuities, Discussion Paper 6281, Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn)
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Jan
