Teaching unions warn of fierce cuts to Bradford school budgets - but Government says city will receive £6.5m boost

The School Cuts website - spearheaded by the National Education Union (NEA), the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of School and College Leaders, GMB, as well as Unite and Unison - claims a staggering total cut of £28,395,054 across schools in the district, equating to £335 less for each pupil and a loss of 583 teachers.

The NEA says that while the education secretary Justine Greening's announcement of £1.3bn over the next two years is important, it is not enough to reverse the £2.8bn in cuts schools have suffered since 2015.

Teaching unions and MPs in the district have reacted angrily to the figures and have called for more investment for schools.

But the Department for Education has slammed union calculations as “fundamentally misleading” and says they are based on historical data, with the new formula resulting in a cash increase of at least one per cent per pupil to every school by 2019-20.

A spokesperson said the new formula will see Bradford receive a 1.6 per cent increase, resulting in a £6.5 million boost.

The NEU says that it has looked at the core schools budget, representing 75 per cent of school spending. It used the schools block funding allocation for 2015/16 as the baseline, to give the per pupil funding for every mainstream school. This was then compared with the funding amounts for schools in 2019/20 through the National Funding Formula. Pupil numbers were taken from the October 2016 school census as the best available estimate.

Ian Murch, Bradford spokesman for the National Education Union, said: “It’s a very serious problem. Within the next month we are lobbying all the local MPs to see what they can do to get something done about it.”

He added that schools are having to reduce staff across the board and Bradford is “particularly badly hit” and while it was not necessarily wrong for a new funding formula to be brought in, money needs to be put into the system to meet the cost of inflation and pay rises.

Imran Hussain, MP for Bradford East, where schools are projected to lose £7,658,425, said any plans to reduce funding available for education in deprived areas such as Bradford are “deeply concerning” and the Government must invest in schools, bring more teachers into the system and remain committed to the Northern Powerhouse Schools Strategy.

Schools in Bradford South are projected to lose £5,744,279 and MP Judith Cummins said she will “continue to hold this Government to account for their failure to invest in our children’s future”.

She said: “Under pressure during this year’s general election Theresa May promised to change her planned cuts to our schools. We can see now the Tories cannot be trusted to keep their word on fair school funding.”

Keighley Labour MP John Grogan, whose constituency is projected to lose £3,404,039 under the formula, said Chancellor Philip Hammond has to find the money to stop the cuts, with the November 22 budget as the “last opportunity”.

He added the projected cuts would lead to bigger class sizes and would make it more difficult to recruit and retain teachers.

Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, which could see a cut of £4,112,303, said the Government had publicly stated it would make sure no school’s budgets were cut and while he trusts it will keep to that he would “keep an eye” on it.

Bradford West MP Naz Shah was unavailable for comment.

Councillor Imran Khan, Bradford Council’s Executive member for Education, Employment and Skills said: “We know that the real terms funding cuts facing schools is a major national issue.

“We are lobbying the Government to increase the amount of funding they commit to schools in Bradford. The National Funding Formula will not work if the funding schools receive does not keep up with the rising costs they face.

“The latest announcement from the Government on the National Funding Formula was more positive for Bradford as a floor has been established which means no school will see a reduction in funding. However the fact remains that schools will face cuts in funding in real terms.

“We cannot comment on the detail of the latest predicted figures published by the School Cuts website and we know that our schools will do everything they can to minimise the impact of budget pressures on the education they provide.

“However we want every child in Bradford to be able to access the best possible education. Our schools need to be given more financial support and not real terms cuts.”

Councillor Debbie Davies, the Conservative group’s education spokesman, said she would rather comment when official figures are released to see what the picture is.

And Councillor David Ward, Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said indications shows that through to 2020, there will be a “very large” shortfall in the funding made available. He said work needs to be done through the Local Government Association, with an all-party lobby, to make the Government understand the implications.

But a Department for Education spokesperson said: “The unions’ figures are fundamentally misleading.

“They are based on historical data and do not reflect the situation in our schools today.

“They also ignore the fact that schools funding is driven by pupil numbers and, as pupil numbers rise, the amount of money schools receive will also increase.

“As the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed, overall schools funding is being protected at a national level in real terms per pupil over the next two years.

“At the same time, our historic improvement of the school funding system – backed by an additional £1.3bn of extra funding – will replace the current postcode lottery which saw huge differences in funding between similar schools in different parts of the country.

“Our new formula will allocate a cash increase of at least 1 per cent per pupil to every school by 2019-20, with much higher gains for underfunded schools.”