Every school in Basingstoke will see budget cuts

Whilst the Government claims that school funding will increase, it does not take into account that schools are having to face the unfunded rises in pay, pension and National Insurance contribution.

Figures provided by the National Union of Teachers show that schools in Hampshire County Council will lose £62,700,000 of funding by 2019, that is £377 per pupil. That is enough money to fund 1682 teachers.

Some of the schools in Basingstoke which will be worst hit are:-

Queen Marys College, set to lose £795,114 and 21 teachers
Cranbourne Business and Enterprise College, set to lose £331,664 and 9 teachers
The Costello School, set to lose £364,915 and 10 teachers
Aldworth School, set to lose £431,628 and 13 teachers.

Overall, schools in Basingstoke will lose a total of £6,366,239 and 184 teachers.

Gavin James said, "With far fewer teachers, it's our children's education that will suffer. It's crazy. How can this help our economy? The overall pot of money is too small. It's not sufficient to meet rising costs.

These will be the largest real terms funding cuts to schools for a generation. The Minister for Education needs to go back to the Chancellor and get more money. In addition, the Government needs to look again at the funding formula. We can't afford these cuts. We need the Chancellor to do another U-turn."

Janice Spalding the former Parliamentary Candidate for Basingstoke on discussion of these figures said "My main driver for standing in 2015 was to to see investment in schools and teaching so that we have the right skills for industry as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics have all suffered from underfunding and there is a significant skills shortage. The only positive thing about Brexit is that this will highlight the failing investment in schools as it means we cannot rely on the skills from abroad".