Secondary Schools: Funding

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

There is no evidence that the take-up in GCSE art subjects has declined as a result of the EBacc. In fact, the New Schools Network found that the number of art GCSEs taken by pupils has gone up since the introduction of the EBacc. We have to remember always that when we started in 2010, sadly, only one in five pupils in state schools were studying a core suite of academic subjects. That is why we focused on the EBacc and have doubled the number of pupils who have these academic subjects, which are particularly important for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister says that his Government have protected the main core school budget, but would he not accept that on-costs which schools have to pay, such as national insurance, have ensured that schools have not got the money? In fact, the IFS yesterday reported that, for the first time, there is a real cut in school budgets. Would this account for the fact that there has been a 10.6% decrease in the number of hours given over to creative art teaching?

[Lord Nash]

The IFS pointed out that over the 20 years from 2000 to 2020, schools will have a 50% per pupil increase in real terms. As I said, we believe that there is considerable scope for savings in schools’ efficiency. We are already on course to save £250 million in academies by next year alone with our RPA scheme substituting insurance costs. We believe that our buying strategy can save £1 billion out of £10 billion a year of non-staff spending.