The admission by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) that it expected the number of pupils to fall by a further 50,000 next year, on top of the 50,000 fewer pupils this year, was made last week as education secretary Charles Clarke sought to 'restore stability and certainty' to school budgets over the next two years.
Mr Clarke announced in the House of Commons that schools whose pupil numbers stayed the same would receive a 4 per cent rise in their overall budget next year and also for 2005-06. The DfES said this was above the 3.4 per cent increase in 'unavoidable cost pressures' it expected schools to experience next year.
The education secretary also said that schools whose pupil numbers declined would be guaranteed a funding increase of more than 4 per cent per pupil, 'because schools in this position still have to pay costs such as cleaning, repairs and heating, which do not reduce when pupil numbers go down'.
However, he acknowledged that losing around 100,000 pupils over two years meant that there would be a 'significant' number of primary schools 'with reduced staff budgets - and therefore staff numbers'.
But Mr Clarke said he was confident that the measures 'will help to create stability for schools'.
Unions representing school staff gave the announcement a mixed response.
David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, claimed that the Government was 'gambling all on a funding deal designed to give stability and to stave off job losses between now and the General Election', but that there was 'absolutely no guarantee that the attempt to repair the severe damage caused by this year's funding fiasco will do the trick'.
He pointed out that the funding settlement failed to solve the 'acute problems' faced by schools in deficit or with no reserves due to this year's spending crisis, and added that if it 'does not deliver the 1bn needed to carry out workload reduction, it will only serve to anger headteachers'.
NASUWT general secretary Eamonn O'Kane welcomed the move as it 'should reassure schools that measures are being introduced which will bring a degree of stability for which they have been calling'. He said, 'It is particularly important that the Government has recognised that schools with falling rolls must not be disproportionately disadvantaged by the funding system.'
The NUT, which was the only teaching union not to sign up to the workload agreement, described it as 'a suck-it-and-see settlement'. An NUT spokesman said, 'Charles Clarke's statement on school funding shows that the Government still has a very long way to go before schools can be sure that they will not face job losses, cuts and deficits in the next two years.
'Schools needed an average increase of 11 per cent to stand still this year. A 4 per cent guarantee for the next two years is a very long way from that.'
