Luke Sibieta

From May this year, all large employers have had to pay the apprenticeship levy, which equates to 0.5% of payroll bills in excess of £3m. This is estimated to raise £2.8bn a year by 2019-20. In recompense, expenditure on the costs of off-the-job training for apprentices is now effectively free (up to certain limits set by government), which applies to levy- and non-levy-paying employers in a broadly similar way. These changes have led to an increase in the expected government subsidy for apprenticeships in England from £1.8bn in 2016-17 to £2.5bn in 2019-20.

The government’s policy to pay schools to get more pupils studying maths is misguided, argues Luke Sibieta – why not raise sixth-form funding instead?

Last week, the Secretary of State for Education announced arrangements for school funding in England in 2018–19 and 2019–20. This confirmed additional annual funding of around £900m by 2019–20 (as compared with pre-election plans) and announced the amended plans for the national funding formula. Under these new proposals, the funding local authorities receive for schools will be linked to local area characteristics; however, a new national school-level formula will now not be in place until at least 2020–21. This is a smaller step than planned prior to the election – although still one in the right direction. The slower pace of reform and additional money also mean that schools losing out under previous plans will probably see their funding situation improve slightly. This observation describes the current system, why reform is needed and the likely effects of the latest proposals.

In this observation, we examine the main parties’ proposals for spending on 16-18 education in England, which includes students in School Sixth Forms, Sixth Form Colleges and Further Education Colleges. This area of education receives considerably less attention in public debate than other areas and seems not to have been a major spending priority for policymakers over recent decades.

In this observation, we detail what the commitments outlined in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos on education spending would mean for the path of overall school spending in England and the prospects for continued reform of the school funding system.

The Labour party is due to publish its June 2017 election manifesto later today. Below you will find detail on recent IFS analysis, which may help to contextualise and assess some of their policies.

This election observation details the education spending commitments and compares them to existing government plans.

This article was published in Schools Week.

Election battleground in the playground?

Luke Sibieta write for the ESRC's blog about a collaboration between Lambeth Council and researchers from the IFS which proved informative for policymakers and of value to researchers.