Steve Double, Member of Parliament for St Austell and Newquay has joined over 111 MPs in writing an open letter to David Cameron calling on the Government to deliver school funding reform. The MPs, working on a cross-party basis, ask the Prime Minister to implement the funding formula proposed by the F40 campaign group, which would ensure fair funding based on pupil need.
Commenting, Steve said;
“I wholeheartedly support the announcement on proposed changes to the pupil finding system that the F40 group is calling for.”
“Cornwall is historically underfunded in this area, and these proposals, which would see Cornwall’s per pupil funding rise from £4,464.46/year to £4,568.36 – an extra £103.90 or 2.3%, would mean an extra £6.8 million a year for the county, and go a long way to addressing this historic imbalance which we have had to put up with for too long”.
Under the current system, the ten best funded areas of England will receive an average grant of £6,297 per pupil this year, compared to an average of just £4,208 per pupil in the ten most poorly funded areas.
In their letter, the MPs say:
“It is widely acknowledged that the existing school funding model is a muddle and that funding for individual schools with similar pupil characteristics is arbitrary and unfair.
“At a time of spending restraint it is more important than ever that funding is allocated based on need. F40 has come up with a formula which would see the funding cake shared much more fairly.
“We believe this formula can help deliver a solution. We want the children in our schools to continue to have a broad range of subjects to study, good resources to use, well maintained buildings, reasonably sized classes and excellent pastoral support. Fairer funding is integral to all of this, and we urge you to deliver it.”
Those who have signed the letter include former Cabinet ministers Dominic Grieve, Caroline Spelman and Cheryl Gillan (Conservative) and Ben Bradshaw and Andrew Smith (Labour), Education Committee Chairman Neil Carmichael and Commons Speaker John Bercow, in his capacity as MP for Buckingham