Schools are hurtling towards a funding crisis under a Labour government that is likely to mean staff cuts and bigger class sizes, head teachers and education experts have told i.
The party’s education offer has had a huge amount of attention during the election campaign, thanks to its controversial flagship policy of taxing private school fees to help fund the state sector.
However the VAT is unlikely to be introduced until September 2025 at the earliest – so state schools will have to wait for the £1.5bn or so that the new regime hopes it can raise for them.
But schools need more money now and experts are questioning whether there will be enough for them to fulfil Labour’s promise to “raise school standards for every child”. Heads are already working out what they can cut.
The tight fiscal rules that Labour has campaigned on leave it with little room for manoeuvre on public spending and, crucially, the party has not committed to protecting per-pupil school funding.
Pepe Di’lasio, general secretary of head teachers’ union ASCL, says that state schools’ “number one worry is around funding and making a budget that works”.
“Most of them are looking at deficit budgets this year and they’re not quite sure how they’re going to survive the year two or year three in the current situation that they’re in,” he said.
Schools need to make cuts to make ends meet
He said that many were looking at “where they’re going to cut in order to make ends meet”.
Robbie Cruikshanks, a researcher at the Education Policy Institute think tank, paints a similarly bleak scenario and says that Labour is “looking down the barrel of a [school] funding crisis” after a decade-long cash squeeze under the Conservatives.
“Labour is going to really struggle to improve standards in our schools and address some of these educational inequalities that they’ve acknowledged and admitted they want to address without some sort of commitment around school funding,” he told i.
The problem now, Mr Di’lasio says, is that such a large proportion of school budgets go on staffing and that the last 10 years of cuts means that the “low hanging fruit have been taken already”.
“So it’s now looking at more critical services [that schools] have worked really hard for 10 years to develop,” he said.
“You’ll want the very best teachers in front of every class. But you may initially looking at larger class sizes, reducing numbers of sets in year groups.
“Then you’ll be looking at [cutting] support staff, pastoral staff who support young people, staff that you’ve invested in, to support around mental health and wellbeing.”
Luke Sibieta, an analyst at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said Labour had not made any commitments on core school spending and it was largely unclear how the party would meet its goals given the tight fiscal rules it has inherited.
“There are some limited commitments around providing more money for extra teachers, mental health support in schools – all funded from the VAT on private schools,” he said. “But it’s pretty small: about 1 per cent to 2 per cent extra in school spending.
“They didn’t make any commitments at all on core school spending… Apart from a broad pledge to end austerity, which you can interpret as you want.”
Teachers’ pay is likely to be an area that will put early pressure on education ministers because an offer due to come from the last government was delayed by the election.
Mr Di’lasio describes it as “an urgent opening day top of in-tray type priority”. A burgeoning teacher recruitment crisis means a good settlement will be important to keep the profession attractive.
But with schools already making cuts and Labour’s tight purse strings it is difficult to see where money to pay for it could come from.
Mr Cruikshanks said Labour’s other education policies might provide “relief” for teachers with reforms to Ofsted and the school accountability system and pledges to recruit 6,500 new subject teachers.
Labour’s promises to state schools
Teachers
Labour has promised to recruit an additional 6,500 new “expert” teachers into shortage subjects, support “areas that face recruitment challenges”, and tackle retention issues.
The party has also pledged to review how bursaries are allocated, update the early career framework and introduce a teacher training entitlement.Curriculum and assessment
Labour plans to review curriculum and assessment, working with “school staff, parents and employers”.
The review intends to create a curriculum that is “rich and broad, inclusive, and innovative” and assessment that finds the right “balance” between exams and other methods.
The party also promised to fund “evidence-based” early-language interventions in primary schools.Ofsted
Labour says it will replace single headline Ofsted grades with a new report card system “telling parents clearly how schools are performing”.
The Ofsted reforms will also bring multi-academy trusts “into the inspection system as well as introducing a “new annual review of safeguarding, attendance, and off-rolling”.Special education needs and mental health
Labour has pledged a “community-wide approach” to special educational needs, improving “inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to those with the most complex needs”.
It also promised a mental health counsellor in every school.Cost of living
Labour says it will introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school “accessible to all children”.
It has also promised to bring down the cost of school uniforms by “limiting the number of branded items of uniform and PE kit that schools can require”.
The party intends to bring in a supervised tooth-brushing scheme for 3 to 5-year-olds, targeting the areas of highest need.
But it is likely to be more than a year before the end of Ofsted’s single word judgements – much hated by many teachers – and the money for the recruitment arrives.
Meanwhile other big problems loom. Loic Menzies a researcher and education policy specialist based at Jesus College, Cambridge University says that Labour has “very limited room for manoeuvre because there are so many fires raging at the moment”.
He listed the crisis in special needs, low attendance rates, school buildings infrastructure issues and a breakdown in the relationship between parents and school as key issues a new government would face.
“You’ve got so many immediate things that are going to take up a huge amount of bandwidth that I don’t they’re likely to be able to take on much more,” he said.
And addressing these “deep crises” comes back to being able to “find some cash”. “I think it’s unlikely that the proposed VAT on private schools is going to be enough to pay for these quite fundamental challenges,” Mr Menzies said.
Risk of strikes
Both he and Mr Cruikshanks think there is a risk of increased industrial action if Labour is unable to get a handle on these big issues for schools.
“In the past, secretaries of state have come unstuck where those industrial relations have reached crisis point,” Mr Menzies said. “But it was encouraging to see that the unions have said that they want to give space to a new Secretary of State to breathe and to get their feet under the table to resolve some of those issues.
“There’s a degree of patience which is really welcome because the last thing that’s needed right now is another big fire to break out.”
Mr Cruikshanks, said: “The pledges around 6,500 new teachers will feel like a bit of a boost to the system. Although I would say there are questions on how Labour will do that, given that they haven’t made any commitments around teacher pay.
“So unless that kind of that knot is tackled, we could see similar strikes and concerns over teacher pay as we’ve had in the last couple of years.”
Mr Di’lasio says there is room for some patience in schools. “We’ll accept there’s no money tree that’s going to bear fruit on July the fifth,” he said.
He says that Labour is “walking into a state where the whole of the public sector has been left to ruin”. “There’s been a decade of underinvestment underfunding and a lack of care and attention to what is most significant aspects of our public life.
“I think one of the things that we all acknowledge is that that that cannot be put right overnight and also that it will involve there being competing priorities across the public sector, all of whom will see a desperate need for investment themselves.”
But schools are in need: “What we really want is a sense of hope and a sense of optimism for the future.”
For Jonathan Simons, a former Downing Street education official under both Labour and the Conservatives, the real long-term financial outlook for schools will depend on external forces.
“Everything is about economic growth,” he said. “I think [Labour] probably do want to increase the investment in education, and that’s definitely needed. You can’t do any of it without economic growth.”
The Labour Party has been contacted for comment.