Luke Sibieta

Here we outline an initial response from IFS researchers on the Conservative party manifesto. We take policy areas by turn but this is not a full assessment.

Below we outline an initial response from IFS researchers on the Labour manifesto. We take policy areas by turn but this is not a full assessment.

Below we outline an initial response from IFS researchers on the Liberal Democrat manifesto. We take a number of policy areas by turn but this is not a full assessment.

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.

IFS researchers presented the key findings from their second annual report on education spending in England, supported by the Nuffield Foundation, providing consistent measures of day-to-day spending per pupil in England across the four main stages of education stretching back to the early 1990s.

Almost all the candidates in the Conservative leadership election have promised higher levels of spending on education. With a Spending Review of some form due this year, we analyse the cost of potential commitments on schools and education spending.

It's a fact that spending on schools in England is much higher than it was 20 years ago. But that's not the full picture in a country which has seen a population boom coincide with a squeeze on public spending. Spending per pupil is actually lower than it was in 2010 in today's prices - as is the case across the rest of the UK.

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.

A presentation by Luke Sibieta, IFS Research Fellow, to the Wales Public Services 2025 conference, ‘Sustaining Wales public services: austerity and beyond’, 12 July 2018.