Neil Puffett



Conservative plans for education are “skewed towards schools serving less-disadvantaged communities”, an independent report says.

The party’s proposals, should it win this month's general election, will do little to address the existing disadvantage gap or provide necessary funding increases to improve support for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), an analysis of the leading parties' manifestos concludes.

The analysis conducted by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) on behalf of the Nuffield Foundation, found that the Conservative manifesto contains some key policies that could support improved education standards.

However, it added that there are a number of areas where the proposed policy agenda is “unlikely to support the very boldly stated aspirations which the Conservative government has set out for raising attainment and ensuring greater equality of opportunity”.

The report warns that despite Conservative plans to invest £14bn in the education system, this may not result in additional support for those that need it the most.

“A major concern is that under the Conservative plans the additional funding for schools will be skewed towards those schools serving less-disadvantaged communities,” the report states.

“Our analysis finds that, under current government plans, over a third of the most disadvantaged primary schools and half of the most disadvantaged secondary schools outside London would receive inflation-only increases in their budgets.”

It highlights a lack of commitment to further increases in funding for pupils with SEND after 2020/21, suggesting this area will continue to suffer from funding pressures.

In September, a damning report by the National Audit Office warned that SEND support "is not, on current trends, financially sustainable", calling on the government to take urgent action to adequately fund the system.

The report adds that, despite around 40 per cent of the disadvantage gap at age 16 already being present at age five, the Conservative manifesto has "little to say" about improved early years education.

"Policy in this area seems largely focused on childcare, to help parents who want to return to or remain in employment.

"England has a relatively low-funded, poorly paid and under-qualified early years workforce, and some of the existing entitlement policy (such as the 30-hour policy) excludes many poorer children.

"The Conservative manifesto does nothing to address these issues, and it is therefore difficult to see any significant reduction in the early years gap under the Conservative approach.”

The report’s authors analysed all of the main parties' aspirational statements aimed at improving education in their manifestos.

Of Labour proposals on early years education, the report says that large increases in funding to provide additional hours of education for two- to four-year-olds, and improved staff pay and qualifications, could help to reduce the large disadvantage gap by age five.

But the report warns that it may take time to recruit and train additional staff and it would be important to ensure that very large rises in funding are used effectively.

“Since research suggests that early years education needs to be high quality to have an impact on longer-term outcomes, there is a risk that this very rapid increase in spending may not deliver value for money in the short term,” the report states.

The Liberal Democrat manifesto sets out that by 2024/25, schools will get an additional £9.6bn, with £12.7bn for early years education and childcare, £1.1bn for extending free school meals, and £1.5bn for further education and youth services.

The report states that the fact that the largest amount would go to early years indicates that “early investment” would “move from rhetoric to reality” and would be higher per student than in the primary and secondary education phases.

However, it warns that the speed and scale of change raises risks that the plans will prove too ambitious, or that there would need to be an over-reliance on less-skilled staff.

“This could, in turn, considerably moderate any favourable impacts on child development,” the report adds.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: “It’s no secret that the sector has struggled to recruit and retain quality staff in recent years, but there is a simple reason behind that. The current early years funding shortfall stands at two thirds of a billion pounds and that level of underfunding has closed thousands of providers, never mind caused many thousands more practitioners to leave the sector for less stress and better pay.

"It now seems clear that, whoever gets into Downing Street, we'll face more of the same. Each party has left the sector facing a funding shortfall and there can be no doubt what that means: more closures and an ongoing churn of staff. It doesn't have to be like this, but the first step has to be making sure that funding levels match the true cost of delivering quality childcare."