Fairer funding for schools in the South West

Schools in the least fairly funded local areas across the South West will benefit from a £390 million cash boost in the biggest step towards fairer schools funding in a decade, Schools Minister David Laws has announced.

In March, the Government announced that it would take action to tackle the unfair and complicated system of allocating local school funding, and launched a consultation on how to deliver an additional £350 million to schools in the least fairly funded areas by setting minimum funding levels.

The Government has published details of how an extra £390 million – £40 million more than was announced in March – will be allocated to increase the budgets of the least fairly funded areas, while ensuring no other local council’s per pupil funding will be reduced from its present level.

Areas across the South West including Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Wiltshire will all receive an increase in funding.

Schools Minister David Laws said: "This £390 million boost - £40 million more than was announced in March - is the biggest step toward fairer schools funding in a decade, and will go a long way to removing the historic unfairness of the funding system.

“Crucially, we have ensured no local authority will see a reduction in its budget as a result of our reforms, while local authorities in the least fairly funded areas will see an increase.

“This increase in funding will make a real difference on the ground to schools across the South West without creating instability, uncertainty or cuts in any local area.”

Funding will be allocated to local areas on the basis of the characteristics of their pupils and schools, rather than on historical data that is out of date and no longer reflects pupils' needs.

This will mean that in 2015-16 every local area will attract a minimum level of funding for each of its pupils and schools, making the distribution of funding to local areas much fairer. In every local area, this will mean, for example, that the most deprived pupils in primary

schools will attract at least £4,454; in key stage 3 at least £5,820; and key stage 4 at least £6,372, and this will continue to be supplemented by further direct funding through the Pupil Premium.

The announcement will build on the progress already made to ensure school funding is fair and transparent. Local authorities now allocate almost 90% of schools funding based on the needs of pupils compared with to only 71% in 2012-13.

These reforms will ensure an immediate increase to the least fairly funded local councils and will pave the way for the implementation of a national funding formula over the next Parliament.