The Department for Education has admitted to bungling its funding figures for state schools in England next year, after revealing a £370m error in previous announcements by ministers.
The DfE’s mistake means that mainstream primary and secondary schools will be given at least £50 less a pupil than originally forecast, forcing school leaders to redraw their budgets for 2024-25. For a typical secondary school the loss equates to a teacher’s salary.
Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the miscalculation “speaks volumes about the chaos at the heart of government”.
“School leaders will be rightly angry that basic accounting errors may force them to rethink already tight budgets as a result of the erroneous figures they were provided. Many may now have to revisit crucial decisions around staffing or support for pupils as budgets are reduced,” Whiteman said.
The mistake appears due to an underestimate of pupil numbers by DfE officials, meaning that while the £59.6bn core allocation will be unchanged, the amount schools receive for each pupil will be lower than previously announced.
In a letter issued on Friday evening, Susan Acland-Hood, the DfE’s permanent secretary, said her department had issued revised figures under the national funding formula (NFF) for schools.
“I apologise for this error. The secretary of state [Gillian Keegan] has asked me to conduct a formal review of the quality assurance process surrounding the calculation of the NFF, with independent scrutiny,” Acland-Hood told Robin Walker, the chair of the Commons’ education select committee.
Acland-Hood added: “I would want to express my sincere apologies that this error has occurred, and reassure you that rigorous measures are being put in place to ensure that it will not be repeated.”
When the funding figures were announced in July, ministers told parliament that mainstream funding would rise by 2.7% a pupil between 2023-24 and 2024-25. But the revised DfE document issued at 5pm on Friday says the rise will now be just 1.9%.
Minimum funding levels under the NFF will also be lower on average, with primary schools seeing at least £45 a pupil less, and secondary schools £55 less.
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said: “Children’s education has already been crushed under the weight of a failed pandemic recovery programme, crumbling buildings and the cumulative effects of 13 years of Conservative government, and now leaders are faced with yet more uncertainty for schools and families.”
The revision will increase pressures on school budgets. This week the Institute for Fiscal Studies had warned that the purchasing power of school spending a pupil in 2024-25 would be about 3% lower than in 2009-10 because of rising costs.
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “It is important that there are no similar mistakes in the future. It is also important that ministers urgently review the education budget to make sure all schools receive enough funding to meet all cost pressures.”
The DfE said schools have not received funding allocations for 2024-25, so addressing the error will not result in any clawback. Final allocations will be based on pupil numbers from October’s school census, which has not yet been published.
