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How much of the education budget gets skimmed off each year before it every goes near a school or teacher? Well now we know – since the government published every expense by the Department for Education from May 2010.

Excluding payments to Local Authorities, direct payments to schools, academies and colleges and to other government departments, the DfE has spent £870m since the election on external services.

We have delved into the detail and found that, on subject specific initiatives, Media Studies (through Mediabox) and Music (through Sign Up) got over £3m each, while Maths only £0.5m. Is that right when Maths is much more critical to future life chances?

One egregious example of waste is the £3m rent paid on the lease of the old MI5 building in Piccadilly, owned by the Sebba Family, which was vacated by the QCDA last year… but the break-clause in the lease was not exercised. How many more services have taxpayers paid for that the Department didn’t even use? There is also £5m paid to ‘Redicent Ltd’, although there is no such company registered at Companies House.

Although some of this £870m is due to be cut from the next financial year, the cuts announced (including Becta and QCDA) amount to only 25% of this largely discretionary spending.

The TDA (taking nearly a third of this budget) looks to be slimming down, but CAFCASS and the National College for School Leadership (costing over £220m annually between them) offer very dubious value to children and have so far escaped cuts.

£35m was spent on management consultants and professional services, with PA Consulting, Ecorys and Serco being the biggest beneficiaries.

What particularly annoys us at Teachable is that the DfE has already spent £10m this year marketing to the schools workforce; much of this is just a distraction to teachers, and a waste of paper. Promotion on Teachers TV will have to stop, but there is still over £3m on other advertising, half a million on event organisation and £0.3m supporting Teacher magazine and its falling readership.

If you can spot any more obvious potential for cost savings, please add a comment.