This comment provides the latest analysis of trends in school funding and costs in England over time.
With the Chancellor set to announce the full details of the 2024 Spring Budget next week, there is much debate about fiscal trade-offs facing the government on taxation, public spending and borrowing. In this piece, we set out the current picture on school funding in England, as well as the trade-offs and challenges facing policymakers and schools.
The core schools budget in England is set to be about £60 billion in 2024–25, which includes day-to-day or current school spending on pupils aged 5–16. Total spending is up about 11% in real terms on the level seen five years ago in 2019–20.
The government regularly makes the claim that school funding is at a record or historical high. Whilst technically true, this is not much of an achievement. Practically every government could make this claim every year back to at least 1945, if not earlier. Governments are loathe to make real-terms cuts to total school spending. Furthermore, there are now an extra 900,000 or 15% more pupils than there were in 2010. These pupils require extra teachers, extra books, extra seats, and total spending has thus gone up to meet this extra need.
