Hiring new staff could swallow funds

Anticipation was enormous in schools, universities and colleges ahead of the Chancellor's spending announcement. The initial reaction to the £12.8 billion boost was favourable. But today, doubts were emerging about whether the extra cash could deliver the Government's ambitious targets.

What it means

Child care and nursery

The Chancellor plans to spend £1.5 billion to create 250,000 more child care places and 300,000 places by 2006 in new Children's Centres, which will combine early years education and subsidised child care. The promise is that the extra money will lead within two years to all three and four-year-olds having a free preschool education. But there are a series of difficulties:

? There are enough nursery places for four-year-olds but only for a third of three-year-olds.

? Even where places are available, working families still need child care because nursery care typically finishes in the early afternoon.

? London families face the most expensive child care in Europe and a chronic shortage of nursery nurses and childminders.

? Even supporters admit it will be difficult to find the staff. Stephen Burke, director of the Day Care Trust, estimated that 150,000 extra staff would be required over the next three years to meet the Government's existing child care commitments, let alone its new ones.

? The Chancellor said nothing about extending tax credits which presently meet 70 per cent of child care costs.

Primary schools

Gordon Brown said little about primary schools, except to promise heads a £10,000 increase direct from Whitehall, to spend as they want. The Government has invested millions training staff to return to traditional methods of teaching and claims big improvements as the significant achievement of its first term in office. Nevertheless, one in four 11-year-olds still leaves primary school unable to read as well as they should.

Secondary schools

An average secondary head can expect an extra £500,000 over the next three years to spend as he wants. For 1,400 schools in the most "challenging" circumstances, that rises to £1 million.

But the Chancellor wants "something for something" in the form of more innovation, modernisation and higher standards. And today heads warned much of the extra cash would be swallowed up simply keeping teachers in front of classes.

Rod Stafford, head of Mellow Lane School in Hillingdon, said the £115,000 the school now gets in direct payments almost all disappeared in the struggle to keep his school fully staffed.

With four staff to find by September, he expects the extra cash will go the same way. "Although this money is intended for us to spend as we want, it is being swallowed up firefighting staff shortages," he said. "It is a lack of core funding which is preventing us from bringing about the real improvement the Government wants."

An increase in core funding was just what Gordon Brown promised yesterday, pledging that spending per pupil - £2,700 per year in 1997 - would rise to £4,900 by 2005/6.

A recent survey suggested half of London secondary schools could be forced to make teachers redundant next year. Local education authorities still hold back 15 per cent of the cash to fund central services and pupil numbers in secondary schools are rising, eating up more of the rest.

At the same time, the Government has responded to chronic teacher shortages with pay increases which schools are struggling to meet.

Gordon Brown said nothing about funding the "remodelling" of schools which education secretary Estelle Morris sees as the long-term solution to teacher recruitment and retention. Four out of 10 new teachers leave the profession within three years. Ms Morris aims to cut workload by employing thousands more teachers and classroom assistants and giving schools more computers.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, was clear that the Chancellor's extra cash did not match her ambitions. He said: "It might add up for teachers or classroom assistants, and there won't be enough of those. But not for new computers as well."

Heads welcomed the decision to extend means-tested allowances of up to £30 per week to all 16-year-olds who stay on. But Mr Brown must acknowledge that thousands of youngsters will receive the cash who would have stayed on in any case.

Further Education

Further education colleges educate four million who have failed to achieve in secondary school. They are key to the Government's strategy to see half of those under 30 in higher education by 2010. But colleges are in crisis. Staff are leaving because they can earn more in schools and the lecturers' union NATFHE is planning industrial action over pay. One in four colleges is said to be close to bankruptcy. The union described the one per cent boost in core funding as "particularly inadequate".

Higher Education

Universities say they need nearly £10 billion over three years to meet the Government's target and maintain international competitiveness. They are promised details of their share of the cash in the autumn, in a White Paper which will also spell out the future of tuition fees and students grants. But the absence of any firm promise yesterday left vice-chancellors apprehensive. "We are very disappointed," said a spokesman for Universities UK. "We are facing a crisis through long-term under-funding and the extra cash we have identified is the minimum necessary."