In a visit to Impington Village College last week, Lucy Frazer MP, met with Principal Ryan Kelsell to review funding requirements in light of the recently announced new National Funding Formula which will deliver an additional £3.1million to schools across the constituency.
Lucy, who has spent the last three years campaigning hard for a fairer funding formula for schools in South East Cambridgeshire said, “for far too long Cambridgeshire schools have been underfunded and disproportionately funded in comparison to many other areas. The government’s recently announced new National Funding Formula promises to address some of these discrepancies.
“On the journey to fighting for fairer funding, I have taken head teachers from the constituency to meet with the Secretary of State for Education three times and have spoken separately with Justine Greening on a number of occasions to discuss their concerns. I have also raised funding issues directly with the Prime Minister on more than one occasion.
“I maintain an ongoing dialogue with all the schools in the constituency about funding and attend meetings arranged by the Cambridgeshire Schools Forum whenever I can. I also liaise frequently with Cambridgeshire County Council.
“I am pleased that our efforts are beginning to pay off and the new National Funding Formula is a welcome step in the right direction. I will, of course, continue to make the case for our schools.”
Under the new National Funding Formula secondary schools will attract a minimum of £4,800 per pupil and primary schools will attract a minimum of £3,500 per pupil by 2019-2020.
There will be a transitional period during which Local Authorities, who currently distribute the funds, will receive an increase over the amount they plan to spend in 2017-18. During this two-year period, Local Authorities will still take the final decisions on distributing funding to schools within local areas, but the new National Funding Formula will provide for all schools to receive an increase in funding compared with their current baseline.
The government has put out illustrative figures based on current pupil numbers, to show what the increase in funding for each school would be were the new National Funding Formula implemented today without a transition period.
For a full list of illustrative figures for all of South East Cambridgeshire’s schools, go to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs