Response to Government announcement on school spending

This evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a funding package for schools across England.

In response to this announcement, Luke Sibieta, Research Fellow at IFS, said “Today, the government sought to deliver on the Prime Minister's commitment to increase school spending by £4.6bn over and above inflation. Since 2009-10, school spending per pupil has fallen by 8% in real-terms in England. The new spending plans should be near enough sufficient to reverse these cuts by 2022-23. In addition, the government is continuing to provide compensation to schools for higher pension contributions on top of this. This package represents a large increase in spending per pupil, taking it back to about the same level it was in 2009-10. However, a 13-year period of no net growth in school spending per pupil, after inflation, still represents a significant squeeze on school budgets when considered in historical terms.“

You can read more about school spending in the pre-released chapter of our 2019 annual education spending report.