The row about BSF has obscured the real story on school capital funding
Much of the attention of the coalition governments funding of English maintained schools has focussed on the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. Almost no attention has been focussed on another aspect of capital funding that will affect all schools – that of Devolved Capital Funding. This is the annual allocation to schools for minor capital repairs and refurbishments introduced by the last government.
As from this April this funding will be cut drastically. Those who have not yet been told by their LA as to how it will effect their school can find this out from the DFE website which lists the Devolved Capital Funding by LA. The funding for an individual school can be arrived at by multiplying the per pupil allocation by the number on role and adding this to base allocation per school
In order to find out the scale of the reductions this can be compared with the 2010-11 allocations which can be found here
The percentage reduction varies slightly between LA and LA (this largely reflects changes in total pupil numbers) but it is in the range of 67-68%.
Here are a few examples:-
LA 2010-11 2011-12
Leeds 7,510,235 2,428,934
Manchester 4,795,435 1,514,004
North Yorkshire 8,380,313 2,755,832
Kent 16,619,338 4,811,442
Southampton 2,082,701 661,306
Camden 1,741,136 576,342
Barnett 3,401,590 986,496
This reduction is likely to be permanent as the DFE states ;
Allocations for 2012-13 until 2014-15 will be informed by the outcome of the capital review, which will be published in early 2011. While the allocation and management for these programmes may change to reflect the recommendations of the review, it is expected that the funding available for basic need and capital maintenance of schools will be roughly in line with the funding for 2011-12.
