The coalition’s analysis suggests that increases in funding for 2025/26 will not be enough to cover rising costs for a large majority of schools – including 76% of primary and 94% of secondary schools.
The campaign group forecasts that schools’ costs for 2025/26 will rise by 3.4% – including the government’s proposed unfunded 2.8% pay rise for teachers from September 2025.
At the same time, it calculates that mainstream school funding is currently set to increase by just 2.2%.
The calculations – which are set out on the campaign’s website (see methodology below) – suggest that every local authority will see a real-terms drop in per-pupil funding.
The analysis states: “We found that for 76% of primary schools and 94% of secondary schools their increase in per-pupil funding compared to last year’s baseline is less than 3.4%, so they will not receive a sufficient funding increase to cover their costs.”
The coalition is lobbying for an increase to school funding of around £700m for 2025/26 which it says will be needed to fully fund pay rises for teachers and support staff.
It comes after another sobering analysis – this time from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) – reached similar conclusions earlier this year. The IFS study in January estimated that school per-pupil funding for 2025/26 will grow by 2.8% in cash terms, but will be swallowed by an estimated rise in costs of 3.6%.
The IFS study raised particular concerns that more than half of an 11% real-terms growth in school spending per-pupil between 2019 and 2024 has been absorbed by the rising costs of SEND.
The School Cuts Coalition is run by the National Education Union, the Association of School and College Leaders, the National Association of Head Teachers, the National Governance Association, and ParentKind.
The briefing took place on Monday afternoon (March 10) and comes two weeks ahead of the Spring Statement, which is due to be delivered by the chancellor on March 26.
The government’s autumn Budget last term delivered an increase in funding for the core schools budget of £2.3bn, including £1bn towards SEND.
This delivered phase 1 of the chancellor’s multi-year Spending Review, covering a single year, April 2025 to March 2026. Phase 2 of the Spending Review will be delivered in later this year and will cover at least two years from April 2026 onwards.
The Parliamentary briefing was hosted by Amanda Martin MP – a former teacher and former NEU president.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said: “The time for action is now. Without immediate and substantial investment, we risk failing an entire generation and eroding the economic and social fabric of our communities. The government must use its upcoming multi-year Spending Review to inject additional funding into the system.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary at ASCL, added: “Right across the country, schools are setting deficit budgets and preparing to make further cuts. It is not sustainable for things to carry on as they are.”
Emma Balchin, chief executive at the NGA, said: “For many years, governors and trustees have been telling us that balancing the budget is their biggest challenge, with more and more using reserves to keep their school or trust functioning. Over a third of respondents to our annual survey described their organisation as financially unsustainable.”
- School Cuts Coalition: Majority of schools to face cuts next year, 2025: https://schoolcuts.org.uk/story/majority-of-schools-to-face-cuts-next-year/
- School Cuts Coalition: Methodology: https://schoolcuts.org.uk/methodology/