Camden NUT has organised a meeting at Portcullis House on February 3rd to which they have invoted Tulip Siddiq MP, who also represents three Brent wards. Keir Starmer has already said he will attend and it would be good if Dawn Butler and Barry Gardiner also committed themselves to listen to the concerns. Brent could face a cut of 8.6% by 2019-20 and subsequent loss of jobs in schools.
This is the invitation letter:
London schools face unprecedented cuts over the next few years. In the Autumn Statement, George Osborne announced that education funding would be frozen despite a significant increase in student numbers and the introduction of a national funding formula.This is how the new formula would impact on schools in the London Borough of Brent LINK:
If the plans for a national funding formula advocated by many MPs and the f40 group are enacted this will mean pupils in London schools will have the spending on their education cut dramatically, as these changes coincide with other cuts in education spending and schools having to pay higher pension and national insurance contributions.
These changes will be felt most acutely in the most deprived boroughs; however, funding is at risk in every London borough.
Overall funding for London schools could be cut by 13% over the next four years. Schools have never faced cuts of this size before. Education spending has only been cut twice before in the mid-80s and the mid-90s by 4% and 3% respectively. The scale of these cuts will drag schools back to funding levels last seen in the 1990s. There is a very effective and influential campaign advocating redistributing funding from London and other metropolitan boroughs largely to the shires as a way for those areas to deal with cuts to the education budget. We believe that we need a similarly effec tive campaign to argue that funding should be protected overall; that a national funding formula should properly recognise the true cost of educating large numbers of children from deprived backgrounds; and that the transition to a national funding formula should not force London schools to make significant cuts.
We have arranged an initial planning meeting for local stakeholders with London MPs in Room R. Portcullis House at 5:30pm on Wednesday 3rd February.
Current Individual School Budget 2015-16 £220,485,342
Current Individual School Budget if F40 revised formula applied £217,958,912
F40 budget adjusted for schools inflation 2-19-20 (Source IFS): £206,611,993
Overall budget reduction: £18,873,349
Spending per pupil 2015-16: £5,371
Spending per pupil 2019-20: £4,573 (cut of 8.6%)
Loss of teaching jobs 174 (cut of 7%)
Lost of teaching assistant jobs 349 (cut of 27%)
Other London boroughs are even worse off.
Full documentation here: LINK
