Funds for struggling schools slashed, report reveals
Funding for struggling schools has been slashed to cover a £1bn overspend in the academies programme, a report reveals today.
Spending on a range of education programmes – including improving under-performing schools – has been cut to provide unplanned extra funding for academies, according to the National Audit Office, a public spending watchdog. Leaders of the teaching unions reacted with anger last night, describing the overspending as "appalling" at a time when non-academy schools were having to tighten their belts.
"There appears to be no limit to the amount of money this Government is prepared to pour into creating academies," said Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. "When money in the UK is so tight, this unscheduled spending of taxpayers' money is appalling."
Academy schools, which are funded directly from Whitehall and are independent of local authority control, were introduced under Labour but have been heavily pushed by Michael Gove. The Education Secretary has said he anticipates most schools becoming academies, although critics claim they are insufficiently accountable and hand too much power to school sponsors.
Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: "Taxpayers have the right to expect a more considered and controlled approach to public spending than the department has so far displayed."
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