So The DfE would like us to believe that the problem of education finance can be saved by back office economies. That is, looking for the best deal on paperclips, photocopying and utilities providers.
But as everyone knows, the largest proportion of money spent in schools is on staff – their wages, pension and National Insurance contributions. And, as headteachers will know, difficult decisions on staffing are having to be made.
Class sizes are rising. Teachers aren’t climbing the pay scale as easily, and those who have can find it difficult to move schools unless they go for promotion. Redundancies are being made, starting with the cheapest – often TAs.
To be fair, fairer funding for all schools and LAs has been a long time coming. All children deserve an equal chance at their education, in decent school buildings with properly qualified staff, but setting fairer funding against a backdrop of cuts to public spending means that all schools and LAs are feeling the squeeze.
As budgets tighten, schools are being forced to look hard at their spending. And in an inclusive system, it isn’t hard to see where large wads of it is going. Disabled children, by dint of their needing more adult support in the classroom, can be a financial drain that some schools are keen to avoid.
I know this because when I took my son, who is disabled, to look at primary schools, I was told by one headteacher that I had to consider what he would be taking away, in budgetary terms, from the other children. We didn’t send him there, if you’re interested. And that was before the credit crunch.
In its response to the DfE’s consultation on a national funding formula, the Local Government Association stated that councils must be able to exercise control over allocation of resources to ensure that pupils with SEND receive sufficient funding, and that centralising this decision making would put outcomes at risk.
When it comes to the bottom line, we have the law. I sometimes think that someone, somewhere, must have a vested interest in keeping parents and schools on opposite sides of a battle line, because if it wasn’t for my role as parent of a disabled child, I wouldn’t know half as much as I do about SEN law, who to ask and where to go for advice.
Picking the brains of parents like me, who have become experts in their children, costs little in terms of time, but could save a fortune. Working together makes all the difference in the world – and kindness and compassion costs nothing.
