North East schools face financial “cliff edge” in just 3 years

The new schools funding formula will see some schools across Teesside and the North East face fresh issues, according to the GMB.

The government’s new funding formula could see the hardest hit schools facing a “financial cliff edge” in 2020, according to a new study.

A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) 1 suggests that every school in the country faces cuts under the current plan – with £74,000 set to be slashed off primary school budgets on average while secondary schools stand to lose £291,000.

Protections are in place to ensure no school should see a cash terms cut of more than 3%, or 6% in real-terms, before 2019-20.

However, when even these protections end, 5% of schools - an estimated 1,000 - will then have to make huge savings of more than 7% to stay in line with the new formula.

GMB, the union for schools support staff, says these savage cuts are particularly divisive at a time when Theresa May has earmarked £1 billion for Grammar schools

Sharon Wilde, GMB National Officer for Schools, said:

“*As if every single school facing cuts from this flawed funding formula wasn’t bad enough, we now find out those hardest hit will be speeding towards a financial cliff edge.

“These so-called 'transitional protections' are so flimsy that they are barely worth the name.

"Pupils, parents - and the staff who support them - are being exposed to a brutal attack on their resources.

“GMB members – the hidden professionals in our schools' forgotten army of support staff - will be in the firing line as these cuts begin to bite.

“Justine Greening is creating a ticking time bomb – a lost generation of children whose future will be snatched away by ill-conceived ideas of austerity.

“Yet despite this funding crisis, the Prime Minister can still find £1 billion for her pet grammar schools project.” *