School funding concerns
We write on behalf of more than one thousand member-organisations of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), leading more than 6,600 academy schools educating 3 million children. CST is the national organisation and sector body representing academy trusts in England. We speak for school trusts both as organisations and employers.
We are concerned about the comments made by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury during an interview on Sky News last week in which he said that government departments would stick rigidly to spending limits put in place last October and would be expected to find efficiencies. This was followed by speculation over the weekend that school budget cuts will follow national insurance changes.
Given the seriousness of this situation, and the fact that these comments and speculation further undermine fiscal confidence that our members should have in balancing budgets, we write to you to seek clarification on the position and to state again our very grave concerns about the viability and sustainability of schools and trusts if there is no further investment in school funding within this term of parliament. You will be aware that spending review 2021 decisions were based on much lower inflation levels.
We recognise that your government has put in place an Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This will help in the short term. However, energy cost pressures come on top of unaffordable public sector pay awards and wider inflationary pressures. To be clear, we believe paying teachers, support staff, and leaders well is crucial to our economy. However, the announcements on public sector pay were made after budgets had already been set. Our members have told us that these cost pressures are unaffordable within existing budgets.
We are working with your officials at the Department for Education and remain committed to doing so now and in the future. We stand ready to work with you to find policy solutions to alleviate these significant challenges.
