Christine Farquharson

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.

Presentation at the launch event for our annual Education Spending in England report, held at One Great George Street.

This presentation was given by Christine Farquharson at the Public Economics Lecture Day on 5 January 2018.

Presentation given at the European Economic Association conference, 22 August 2017.

As part of its proposal to create a National Education Service, the Labour party has put forward plans to dramatically increase and reform childcare subsidies in England. Taken together, these changes would transform the childcare system in England: extending access to free childcare to more and younger children, introducing subsidies for additional hours of care, and transitioning from a system in which subsidies are given to parents to a system of direct government subsidy. These proposals are costly: Labour anticipates that it will spend an additional £5.3 billion on the early years in 2021-22, 70% more than under current projections, and the long-run costs might be higher yet. There is a case for subsidising childcare to support children’s development and parents’ employment, particularly as Labour plans to invest in high-quality places. However, available evidence from the UK suggests that these benefits will be comparatively small. Both sides of the policy coin – benefit and cost – will depend on the take-up rates of these extended entitlements; however, there is a great deal of uncertainty about what a realistic estimate might be.

The Labour party has promised to introduce free school meals for all primary school children, claiming that universal free lunches would remove stigma and ‘benefit the educational attainment and health of all children’. Previous IFS research concludes that providing school meals free of cost to all primary students can boost attainment by the equivalent of two months’ progress over two years, a meaningful effect. However, the costs of this policy are substantial – around £950 million a year – and the benefits from extending it nationwide might be smaller than found in the pilot study. In the context of constrained public spending and alternative programmes such as breakfast clubs that deliver similar gains at much lower cost, policymakers should think carefully about whether this is the best use of resources.

This presentation was given by Christine Farquharson at the 2017 Royal Economic Society Conference on 10 April 2017.

New IFS research finds that providing school breakfasts free to all children in disadvantaged English primary schools helps pupils to make two months’ additional progress over the course of a year. These gains seem to be driven by better behaviour and concentration in the classroom, meaning that even students who don’t eat breakfast at school can benefit from the improved learning environment. These benefits come at a low cost relative to other programmes with a similar impact on attainment.