Nick Clegg's Education Speech (Part 1)

5 June 2008

Delivering a speech to the IPPR think-tank, Nick Clegg suggests that thousands of schools across the country are facing budget cuts and need a new fair funding system if they are to deliver high quality education to all children regardless of their background.

Mr Clegg calls for £2.5bn of reallocated money for a ‘Pupil Premium’ to support the most disadvantaged pupils.

Below is part one of Nick Clegg's education speech.

There is a palpable feeling in politics at the moment that Britain has come to a turning point. There’s a feeling of insurrection in the air.From the reaction to the 10p tax fiasco, through to the fuel protests, to the recent election results: people are ready for a change. We can all speculate on why it’s happening. And there are lots of reasons we could latch onto. But today I want to concentrate on the one reason that I believe is most important. That Labour has failed to deliver the fairer society they promised.

I remember in 1997, when Tony Blair promised there would be ‘no forgotten people’ in a Labour Britain.  But there are forgotten people still.

Wealth inequality has risen. Social mobility appears to be stagnant, or falling, depending on whose statistics you look at. In Britain today, more than in any other country in Europe, your chances in life are determined by where you are born, and who your parents are.

There were big ambitions in 1997. But we have not got the change we were promised. Today I want to talk about how we can make change happen, for good. And deliver the fair society, with opportunity for all, that Britain wants.

Because we will never have a truly liberal society unless everyone, no matter their background, has the opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Since 1997, the Government has pulled many levers to seek to tackle the lack of social mobility in our country. But the challenges remain enormous. Let’s look at school standards.

The Government is - rightly - seeking to raise standards in every school in the country. It has selected a remarkably modest target of ensuring that every school gets at least 30% of children to achieving 5 good GCSEs, including English and Maths.

Let us disregard, for the moment, the implications of this absurdly low target, that would see a school classed as adequate even when 70% of pupils fail to get this minimum set of qualifications.

Instead, let’s look at how much school performance is still linked to family incomes. Over half - 54% - of schools in the 10% most deprived areas are missing this 30% target. But in the most affluent 10% of areas, just 2% of schools miss the target. 54% versus 2%.

There cannot be a clearer demonstration of the link between school catchment and performance, between advantage and opportunity. Of course, life chances depend on many variables.

Family support, employment opportunities for parents and young people alike, incomes, housing, and more. It is difficult to break the cycle of disadvantage. That’s why I’ve asked Martin Narey of Barnardo’s to produce a report on Britain’s failing social mobility - and how we can solve these problems. He will be reporting back to me later this year.

But it is clear already that it’s through education that we have the greatest opportunities to make a difference. Later this month, I’ll be giving a talk about reform and personalisation in education.

This will be about how we create more good schools and good school places. It will also be about how “personalisation” can be made more than a slogan - and instead how it, too, can be used to improve education for every child.

And a couple of days later, in a separate speech, I’ll be setting out my views about how we can make the curriculum more relevant for children, and how we can overhaul the qualifications and testing regimes. But today I want to focus on the funding of our education system, and about how this might help us to overcome our country’s truly awful record on social mobility.

Money Matters

This might seem an odd moment to talk about schools’ funding, when so much of the public debate recently has focused on the need to curb public spending and to reduce the tax burden.

It is true that more public spending is not the answer to every problem in the public services - and not the answer to every problem in our education system either. There has already been a huge rise in education spending since 1999.

And it’s clear from the evidence that even without changes in their funding, well led, well run, highly aspirational schools can make a huge difference.

But when it comes to education, money does matter. Just look at the gap between the private and state sector - and look at the difference that extra money can make.

Research also shows that extra education spending targeted on those youngsters most in need can make a real and measurable difference - as the hugely successful one to one reading recovery programme shows.

Even the Conservatives have talked about the need to target extra spending on children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Sadly, their warm words have not got any further than a few lines in a press release.Tackling the inequalities in our education system is simply not a Tory priority.

They have no specific proposals to target those children most in need of extra support. Until they are willing to put their money where their mouth is, their promises will remain hollow and insincere.

I am clear: if we are to tackle inequality in our education system without taking funding away from some schools, we do need to find extra money to invest. And make sure it is channelled to schools in ways that break down social divisions, instead of encouraging them.

This will be challenging. Given the state of government finances and the economy. And the need to cut taxes for low and middle income families.

Any additional money which the Liberal Democrats want to spend - including on education - will have to be found by reallocating money from elsewhere in government.

That’s why my Shadow Cabinet is currently conducting a full Spending Review, to identify £20bn of savings in government expenditure, to be allocated to Liberal Democrat priorities.

As part of this review, we have already agreed to re-allocate into the Education Budget over £2bn a year of new money, and we are in the process of allocating more. The resources we have already identified come from the tax credits system and from scrapping the ill-judged Child Trust Fund.

On tax credits, it is a nonsense that we have a system of tax credits which pays means-tested benefits to people with incomes of £60,000 a year. Liberal Democrats have made clear that we will taper away tax credits above around median earnings - and use the savings for education. And we’ll get rid of the Child Trust Fund.

I know the CTF was developed by ippr - so I may not be making friends with this proposal.

And I can see the strong arguments for asset-based welfare, which gives people something more than a weekly handout.

But when inequalities of opportunity are known to arise in the early years of education, and tax revenues are in short supply, it is a mistake to tie up £500m of new money each year in a baby bond which can only be accessed at age 18.

By then, it is just too late to give young people what they need - real skills and opportunities, and not just money to pay off their tuition fees.

I know that both of these savings may be unpopular with some people.

But in these times of economic trouble and financial limits, we each have to determine our real priorities. Education is mine.

The Background: The Coming Funding Crisis for Schools

The backdrop for our proposals is a growing funding squeeze for England’s schools.A dramatic slowdown is underway in the money that goes to schools. The years of plenty are over.

After rising sharply as a share of the economy after 1999, spending on education will essentially be frozen over the rest of this Parliament.

Already the consequences are being seen in lower pay awards for teachers - with the real pay bill for teachers expected to decline in every year from 2006 to 2011.

And new research I’m publishing today shows that many schools are actually going to receive real terms cuts in their budgets this year.

Information obtained by the Liberal Democrats from English Local Authorities suggests that over one third of schools - that’s around seven thousand schools across England - face real cuts in their funding per pupil this year.

In places where school rolls are falling, these cuts will hit even harder. And a flood of redundancies could follow. We believe that 2008 and 2009 are going to be the toughest years for school budgets for a decade, as rates of inflation exceed the money allocated to many schools.

Early indications are that teacher redundancies will rise from the start of the new school year this September - impacting directly on teaching.

For many schools, Blair’s “Education, Education, Education”, is about to become Brown’s “Cuts, Cuts, Cuts”.

It seems absolutely crazy to be cutting school budgets and staffing. This can only make it more difficult for our education system to meet the challenge of raising standards and closing the gap between affluent and deprived areas.

Where school rolls are falling, this should be taken as an opportunity to consolidate children into lower class sizes - particularly in the most challenging schools.

Instead, it looks as if falling rolls will trigger staff cuts. Liberal Democrats would make it a priority to halt these reductions in school budgets.

Click here to read part two of Nick Clegg's speech.

Applicability: this item refers to England and Wales. Due to devolution, detailed policy may be different in other areas of the UK.