This annual report on education spending in England by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that spending cuts have hit the most deprived schools hardest, with a 14% real-terms fall in spending per pupil between 2009 and 2019, compared with 9% for the least deprived schools.
Recent changes to the way education funding is distributed has compounded that disadvantage by providing bigger real-terms increases for the least deprived schools, making the government’s stated levelling-up goals harder to achieve.
According to the report, public spending on health has gone up as investment in education has declined. In the early 1990s, health and education spending each represented about 4.5% of national income, but while education investment has stayed pegged at about this level, health spending rose to more than 7% of national income before the pandemic.
Colleges and sixth-forms have faced the biggest cuts, and even with additional funding from the spending review, spending per student will still be lower in 2024 than in 2010, the report says.
It also confirms earlier findings that the most deprived schools have lost out most in the reorganisation of schools funding via the national funding formula, with the least deprived schools receiving real-terms increases of 8%-9%, compared with 5% for the most deprived, between 2017 and 2022.