Last minute cuts to school budgets

This is a real blow to our schools. Schools across London will be hit by a £28.3 million government funding cut, London Councils has warned. The Department for Education has cancelled the April payment of the School Standards fund weeks after London boroughs have signed off their budgets for 2011/12. This Fund provides core funding to London schools to help pay for things such as school dinners and one-to-one tuition. The cut means that school funding per pupil is not being maintained at ‘flat cash’ as the Government promised in the Spending Review. Because some of the funding is targeted towards deprived pupils the cut is likely to have a greater impact on more deprived local authorities, thereby diluting the impact of the coalition's much vaunted "pupil premium".