Devon County Council Wants Additional Schooling Funds via MPs

Devon County Council is insistent on Members of Parliament in the county to discover extra funds to be channeled to education. Devon County has a £23.5 million underfunding against some peers, said a local news report. Chief council executive Donna Manson said that “the major cause for this disadvantage of the county is inequalities in the funding formula.”

Noting the impact on deprived communities, she added that many places in the bottom 20 per cent nationally were disproportionately affected, including the towns of Ilfracombe and Barnstaple, Bideford, Teignmouth, Torquay, Paignton, and parts of central Exeter. Speaking to the council’s children’s scrutiny committee, she said: “We need much more funds for pupils, in particular special educational needs at every level.” We have been listening to the school leaders regarding the needs of funding their students, and indeed, it is quite evident on budgets,” she said.

Most of the MPs elected in Devon are on their first term of representation: David Reed, Conservative, Exmouth and Exeter East; Rebecca Smith, Conservative, South West Devon; Rachel Gilmour, Liberal Democrat, Tiverton and Minehead; and Steve Race, Labor, Exeter, amongst others. The council hopes these MPs will throw more light onto the issue of funding disparity.

Funding inequality is not exactly a new issue; one of the members of the F40 group – which includes councils with the lowest education funding – was former Devon MP Sir Gary Streeter. In a letter to former Chancellor Phillip Hammond, the group said the government’s new funding formula “reinforces historical inequities.”.

Paul Walker, chair of the First Federation Trust, said this was all still a problem, adding schools were still struggling with finances. He stated that the Education and Skills Funding Agency report suggested that school funding returned to the level before 2010 but within a context that indicates the sudden urgency of the school funding issue given the fact that schools are waiting for results for 2024.

Against this, Devon County Council is also working to cover a significant shortfall in special educational needs and disabilities funds, which reached over £163 million last year. It agreed with the Department for Education on an almost nine-year deal whereby it will receive £95 million in exchange for the difference being achieved through required savings that would reduce the deficit.