The trouble is, I'm beginning to worry that when the Coalition come out and tell us the less bad news they are starting to use spin. This weekend we have been told that the Education budget will not be cut. This is a massive relief, and much has been made of the fact that other departments face bigger cuts to protect schools. In the future, anyone working in Education will find it very difficult to criticise the Government without sounding ungrateful. Unless, of course, the Government have been applying a little New Labour deception...
We are told unequivocally that the Education budget remains as it was. The trouble is, schools in England have two funding streams, one direct and one indirect. The direct stream is straight-forward - the government gives every school a set sum of money per child on roll. This is the budget that will not be cut. Great news. This sum of money is a substantial part of the average school's budget, but it's not all of it. It will keep the building open and pay most of the staff, but it won't pay for anything else that goes on in a school.
The second funding stream comes from grants that are paid by the Local Authority. Grants to raise standards, grants for Special Needs Education, grants to help with attendance. This money seems likely to be cut. If it does go, schools will be considerably worse of and may be forced to lay-off staff.
The Lib Dems will argue that the 'Pupil Premium' will replace these grants and will be fairer. The idea seems to be to pay extra money for every child who claims Free School Meals. Notice the language: 'claims'. Thousands of families who are eligible for school meals don't claim it. Some don't realise that they're eligible and some don't want the stigma of being openly seen as worse off than others. From the Coalition's point of view, this is a master-stroke - school budgets will fall, but it won't be their fault, it will be the lazy or ungrateful poor who can't even be bothered to fill-in a simple form.
The Coalition will argue that some school's budgets will remain the same or even increase. If you have a lot of students willing to claim Free School Meals, the your budget will be all right. Even this isn't honest. Schools are subject to inflation as much as any organisation, and are particularly susceptible to fuel inflation. And, to make matters worse, the Government is walking off with the goalposts.
Previously schools have benefited from Local Authorities running subsided services that they can access. Need help with HR, payroll, lawyers - the Local Authority provides it. Need a child to see an Educational Psychologist? The LA will sort it out. Many services work in this way. Now, however, Local Authorities know that they are being made to shrink. If there are savings to be made, this is where they will come from. This means that schools will have to use their own budget to buy-in these services.
If this is happening in Education, what spin are we being given about Health or the Armed Forces? What are we accepting as true about the Police budget? As the Spending Review is announced next week, we could well be told that the cuts are not as deep as first feared. I'm sure that professionals in all these areas will have a different view of what 'fair' really is.
Sadly, spin is back.
