Bridget Fox welcomes Labour backdown on schools cash raid

3.41.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 1st Nov 2007

Islington campaigner and school governor Bridget Fox has welcomed news that the Government has backed down over plans to raid school budget reserves, after criticism from Liberal Democrat MPs. Lib Dem MP David Laws called the plans, "a daft idea that should never have seen the light of day." Under Government proposals, any school with a surplus at the end of the financial year, however small, would have seen a chunk clawed back by the Government for spending elsewhere.

Bridget, a governor at St Andrew's School Barnsbury and former Chair of Finance at EGA (Elizabeth Garrett Anderson secondary near Kings Cross), says "Labour Ministers are hypocritical to talk about empowering schools while trying to take back budgets. They have no understanding of the realities of life in our schools, or the budget challenges that headteachers and school governors face. I remember one time when a window fell out of a block at EGA and we had to find the money to fix it immediately. It's barmy to punish schools for trying to manage their budget. Forcing cuts to school budgets means pupils would suffer."

Unlike businesses, schools cannot increase their budgets by generating new income. Most school budgets are tied up paying teachers' wages on nationally-agreed pay scales. So if schools face unexpected costs like emergency building repairs, they either need reserves - or face going into the red. In future years, schools will need reserves to help pay for the costs of new PFI buildings. Schools in Islington already work with the Council to make the best use of the available budgets, through the local Schools Forum.

Bridget adds, "If the Government is worried about schools in better-off areas hoarding reserves, then they should make the funding allocation fairer in the first place, so Islington pupils don't lose out". And she is calling for extra money -a Pupil Premium - to follow pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. This would give a funding boost for Islington schools.

Liberal Democrat proposals for a Pupil Premium would immediately guarantee more money to schools taking children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, shifting an extra £1.5bn each year into schools, from money saved by reforming tax credits.