What Budget 2009 means for education spending
Not much was said, apart from the usual line about how much has ALREADY been spent on education over the last 10 years. But my nasty suspicion is that schools funding in the UK over the next 5 years could be in for a big shock. Pencilled-in spending for 2010 is the same for 2009, but this could well change.
Let’s explain why.
Firstly, the government, even by their own estimation, will have borrowed an extra £175bn this year (or over four times what is spent on schools) to fund their shortfall in tax receipts and bank bailouts. Currently, their plans to create a new top rate of tax at 50% will raise only £1bn extra a year… a drop in the ocean. And it is HIGHLY likely without spending cuts now, this debt mountain will grow to over £250bn by 2011.
To really make a dent in paying back this money (let’s say over 10 years), the next government will have to cut some spending. The splurge in government spending over the last 10 years (of which schools were a big beneficiary) was bankrolled by tax on financial companies and their employees. That has gone for good.
Let’s assume the government tries to pay back £25bn a year, and can’t do so by raising taxes. That is a lot of efficiency gains; around 5% of government spending. We are told Building Schools for the Future is sacrosanct, so that leaves a £37bn schools budget to play with, which is mainly teacher salaries.
There is a little footnote that foretells what is in store:
Unit costs for post-16 learners will be subject to a 1 per cent efficiency assumption in 2010-11. (Page 119, Budget report)
And it doesn’t take much imagination to see what that means: either cut staff or freeze pay. There is still plenty of scope to trim some of the quangos that abound in education, but I’m afraid that mainstream schools might share some of the brunt as well.
We can’t all party like its 1999 any more.
