What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Ministers have been accused of blowing more than £100,000 on a “propaganda” website about school funding.

The new site appears to be a bid to compete with SchoolCuts, a search engine that allows parents to look up how much cash their children's school budget has been slashed.

But unlike SchoolCuts, which is run by teaching unions, the government’s website ignores the impact of inflation, increases in staff pay and other costs.

Education Minister Nick Gibb confirmed the Government had spent £112,125 building the website.

Lib Dem Education spokesperson Layla Moran, who uncovered the cost of the page using Parliamentary Questions, branded it “propaganda” - and blamed Boris Johnson’s right-hand man Dominic Cummings.

Both websites allow parents to search by school or local authority.

But while SchoolCuts shows how much funding has decreased in real terms since 2015, the government’s Skills Funding site only accounts for changes between 2019/20 and 2020/21.

And it doesn’t adjust the figure for inflation.

(Image: gov.uk)

The research behind SchoolCuts has been declared a fair representation of the state of education funding by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, said: “The School Cuts website run by the National Education Union gives parents the information they need to see what the real picture for funding is in their school.

“The Government’s website doesn’t account for inflation and it only shows changes since 2019 – ignoring all the cuts the Government has made since 2015.

“So this website really isn’t very useful to parents and therefore every penny spent on it is a penny wasted”.

Ms Moran said: “Dominic Cummings’ propaganda is doing nothing more than deceiving the public about the funding crisis that schools are facing.

“Boris Johnson’s spending plans won’t reverse school cuts because they force schools to pick up the bill for future rises in teachers’ pay. Meanwhile, parents and teachers are still buying basic supplies out of their own pockets.

“Rather than listening to Dominic Cummings and splashing out hundreds of thousands of pounds on social media and websites for a quick press hit, Ministers should listen to Liberal Democrats and use March’s Budget to fully reverse school cuts.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "We are giving schools the biggest funding boost in a decade, investing in the future talent and supporting the next generation.

“We have launched our own school funding website so that parents and the wider public can easily access the amount each school is attracting following our funding announcement, in a user-friendly format. This information was already in the public domain.”