NGA, along with the rest of the sector, celebrated the announcement made in the chancellor’s autumn statement that schools budgets in England would receive an additional £2.3bn of funding in 2023–24 and £2.3bn in 2024–25. It came as a pleasant surprise after it had appeared the government had decided there would be no more money for education beyond the allocation in the 2021 spending review.
According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), once inflation and pupil numbers have been factored in, then school funding will have increased by around 3% each year from 2021–2025. That is an improvement, but still well behind the average of 5% each year a decade or more ago. This is a stark reminder that we have had 14 years without growth in school funding.
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