“Schools in crisis need better funding” says chair of Lifelong Learning scrutiny committee

Calls have been made to boost funding for schools in Wrexham after it became apparent many are facing a financial “crisis”.

Four in 10 schools have requested a licensed deficit from Wrexham Council because they’re unable to fund essential costs on an annual basis, with many having to make staff redundant to balance the books – as we reported earlier this month: Council cuts lead to 23 teacher and 26 teaching assistant jobs lost.

It comes as a result of the Wrexham Council’s education budget for the current financial year being cut by £5.4m (five per cent).

Senior councillors blamed a drop in central government funding and high inflation levels for the decision.

Now the chair of Wrexham Council’s Lifelong Learning scrutiny committee Councillor Carrie Harper, of Plaid Cymru, has said: “The bottom line we’re hearing from officers and head teachers is that there just isn’t enough money in the system. Many have said they’ve never seen such a severe situation in their entire careers.

“Teaching unions such as the National Association of Head Teachers have been clear that the current issues stem from a reduction in funding from the UK Government to Wales. Real terms funding for schools has fallen by 6% since 2010 and schools are facing massive inflationary pressures.

“This means that our schools are facing a perfect storm of budget cuts, inflationary pressures, combined with increased pressure in terms of more challenging pupil behaviour post Covid. With lengthy waiting lists in CAMHS, school staff are often having to deal with more complex issues that aren’t being addressed by the Health Board.

“The pressure on school staff and governing bodies is immense, many are between a rock and a hard place trying to balance their budgets and ensuring safe staffing levels. There is also a lot of anxiety about what comes next – falling pupil numbers and potential future cuts are adding to the strain.

“The current situation is not sustainable, our education system across Wales is in crisis. Schools have no alternative means of raising the kind of funds we’re talking about here. We need the UK Government to increase funding urgently and to ensure that any uplift passported to the Welsh Government is ringfenced for education.”

As we have noted before, the council have at times been sensitive when Wrexham.com has described £5.4m being cut from education being described as a ‘cut’.

The maths is detailed in the report before councillors earlier this month (below), along with a reminder to how the issue was described at Executive Board where the budget process was debated.

The year on year budget increased by £5.7m however had a £5.4m ‘saving’ as part of the wider council budget process.

The council report stated: “The budget for schools represents over one third of the council’s total revenue budget and given the current level of funding pressure, it is not possible to protect school budgets to the extent they have been in recent years.

“It is recognised that the application of the 5% budget saving and increased pressures within the education system has placed school leaders in an extremely difficult position.

“There are significant concerns across the system that this will affect the educational offer for all learners.

“This picture is common to all local authorities in Wales.”

As we previously reported from a meeting on the topic this month, Cllr Phil Wynn (Ind), Wrexham’s lead member for education, said that many of the consequences of the budget reductions were yet to be realised.

He said: “At this moment in time, as a department, we don’t fully understand the complexity of the impact of the cuts on budgets that schools have had to face this year.

“We are bringing a report to this committee next month to start that conversation.

“Schools have identified a number of staff that have faced voluntary or compulsory redundancy, and that’s information we’ll share with you.

“We are trying to find out what the impact will be for the individual schools that have faced that.

“It’s not going to be easy, because it was a significant saving, efficiency, or whatever you want to call it, that we’ve asked schools to deliver this year.”