Apologies. It looks like the post I did for 2 Jan was not published properly – don’t know why. Never mind I think I have now pressed the right buttons.
The spending on the Department for Education is scheduled to increase from £53.6 billion this year to £57.1 billion by the end of the Parliament. The settlement includes the cost of doubling free childcare from 15 hours per week to 30 hours per week for working families of 3 and 4 year olds from September next year. Spending at least £4.4 billion a year on capital expenditure will result in 600,000 additional school places.
Savings will be made in various way for example an upper income limit of £100,000 per parent will be applied to the additional 15 hours of free childcare and a minimum weekly income level equivalent to 16 hours will be required. Schools will be helped to save on procurement by exploiting economies of scale.
There will also be a re-structuring of post-16 education and training. Sixth Form colleges will be given the opportunity to become academies, allowing them to recover their non-business VAT costs.
David Nuttall 