In most of our analysis of education spending, we focus on spending in England to ensure comparability. In this observation, we expand our analysis to show the level and changes to school spending per pupil across the four nations of the UK.
In this observation, we set out the key facts on how England’s childcare system is structured, how it has changed over time, and some of the pressures it faces over the course of the coming Spending Review.
Over the last two decades, Sure Start Children’s Centres (and their predecessors, Sure Start Local Programmes) have been one of the most important policy programmes in the early years in England. These centres operate as ‘one-stop shops’ for families with children under 5, bringing together a range of support including health services, parenting support programmes, and access to childcare and early education.
At the last election, the Conservative Party manifesto committed to increasing teacher starting salaries in England to £30,000 per year by September 2022. However, to ease pressure on school budgets and the public finances, the government has now announced a freeze on teacher pay levels in England for September 2021, and pushed back starting salaries of £30,000 to September 2023.
In this briefing note, we assess the key policy announcements made in the DfE’s recent ‘Skills for Jobs’ White Paper around the funding of post-18 education.
The Social Mobility Commission investigated the drivers of socio-economic differences in post-16 course choices and their likely social mobility consequences.
By the time the pandemic is over, most children across the UK will have missed over half a year of normal, in-person schooling. This observation sets out the economic case for a massive national plan to address this crisis.
MPs will debate a number of petitions today relating to university tuition fees. These petitions are asking for all or part of tuition fees for the 2019/20 or 2020/21 academic year to be reimbursed. Between them, they have gathered nearly a million signatures.
In our annual series of reports on education spending, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, we bring together data on education spending per student across the life cycle and provide analysis about the major issues facing different sectors.
The closures of childcare providers to most families during the COVID-19 crisis have underlined the importance of access to childcare, both to support paid work and to help shape young children’s environment.
Many governments are considering expanding childcare subsidies to increase the labour force participation of parents (especially mothers) with young children.
Education spending is the second-largest element of public service spending in the UK behind health, representing about £91 billion in 2018–19 in today’s prices or about 4.2% of national income.
Our first annual report on education spending in England provides measures of spending per student in the early years, schools, further education and higher education back to the early 1990s.
