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£4.5 billion in 16 years: what the school funding figures actually say

Qurexa Editorial Team12 September 20266 min read 0 0
£4.5 billion in 16 years: what the school funding figures actually say

What happened

On 10 September 2026, a coalition of teaching unions published a report saying that schools in England have lost £4.5 billion to real-terms funding cuts over the past 16 years. The report came from Stop School Cuts, a campaign backed by three organisations: the NEU, which is the largest education union, NAHT, which represents headteachers, and ASCL, which represents school and college leaders. The headline figures are these. Seventy-four per cent of schools have less funding than they did in 2010. Among secondary schools specifically, the figure is 92%. A total of 3,773 schools have lost more than £1,000 per pupil in real terms, and 773 schools have lost more than £2,000 per pupil. In the last year alone, the report says £300 million was lost. "Real terms" is the key phrase. It means the figures have been adjusted for inflation. A school might receive more pounds than it did in 2010 and still be worse off, because those pounds buy less. The report describes a combination of pressures: crumbling buildings, reduced staffing, rising workload, and not enough money for learning resources and materials. NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede called it "a national scandal to have a generation of children that have only known cuts". NAHT's Paul Whiteman said "funding is failing to keep pace with rising cost pressures". ASCL's Pepe Di'Iasio said "senior leaders and their staff are left having to make impossible decisions". The unions are urging the Prime Minister and Chancellor to restore the lost funding in the autumn Budget.

Why this matters

School budgets are not abstract. They turn into specific things, or fail to. Most of a school's budget goes on staff. So when a budget is squeezed, the usual result is fewer adults. That can mean larger classes, fewer teaching assistants, less specialist subject teaching, and support roles disappearing. Pastoral staff, librarians and subject technicians are often among the first to go, because they are not legally required in the way teachers are. The next things to go are the ones that do not show up in exam results immediately. Trips. Music lessons. Art materials. Sports equipment. Repairs that get postponed until they become expensive. The timing of this report is deliberate. Publishing in September puts it in front of the autumn Budget, when spending decisions are made. That is how campaigning works, and it is worth recognising it as campaigning without that meaning the figures are wrong. There is also a connection worth drawing to something we have covered before. Squeezed budgets sit behind a lot of other pressures schools are dealing with, including support for pupils with special educational needs, and the difficulty of funding pay rises without cutting elsewhere. These are not separate stories.

What the evidence actually says

Here is where care is needed, because school funding statistics are unusually easy to present in different ways, and everybody does. First, who produced this. Stop School Cuts is a union-backed campaign. The unions have a legitimate interest in school funding, and they also have an interest in the figures being as striking as possible. That does not mean the numbers are wrong. It does mean it is sensible to check them against independent sources. Independent analysis does exist. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, which is not affiliated with unions or government, publishes regular analysis of school spending per pupil in England and has documented significant real-terms falls over the 2010s, with partial recovery since. Anyone wanting a neutral reference point should look there. Second, the choice of 2010 as a starting point. Baselines matter enormously in this kind of comparison, and 2010 followed a long period of rising education spending. A different start year produces a different picture. This is a standard feature of the debate rather than a trick, but it is worth knowing. Third, what "real terms" is measured against. Schools face costs that rise differently from general inflation, particularly energy, staff pay and national insurance. Which inflation measure you use changes the answer. Fourth, averages hide variation. Funding is distributed through a national formula, and some schools have gained while others have lost. "Seventy-four per cent of schools have less" also means a quarter have more. None of that overturns the central claim, which is that a large majority of schools have less spending power than in 2010. The direction is well supported. The precise figure depends on choices that reasonable people make differently.

Practical advice

This is mostly a policy story, but there are things individuals can usefully do. You can look up your own school. The Stop School Cuts website lets you search by school and see its figures, and the government publishes school-level funding data on GOV.UK. Looking at your own school is more informative than a national average. If you are asked to contribute to a school fund, it is fine to ask what it pays for. Voluntary contributions are exactly that: voluntary. Schools cannot charge for anything that forms part of the curriculum during school hours, and they cannot make a child's participation conditional on payment. If you feel pressured, that is worth raising politely with the school. If money is tight, ask about support rather than going without. Schools have hardship funds, and families on certain benefits are eligible for free school meals, help with uniform costs and the pupil premium, which goes to the school to support that child. Applying matters, because unclaimed entitlements mean less money for the school as well as for the family. Governors are worth knowing about. School governing bodies scrutinise budgets, and parent governor vacancies come up regularly. It is one of the few roles where an ordinary parent sees the numbers directly. And if you want to raise it politically, your MP is the route. Constituency surgeries and written correspondence are both normal, and the autumn Budget is when these decisions are made.

What to know

A report from the union-backed Stop School Cuts coalition, published on 10 September 2026, says schools in England have lost £4.5 billion in real terms over 16 years. It reports that 74% of schools and 92% of secondary schools have less funding than in 2010, with 3,773 schools down more than £1,000 per pupil. The report is campaigning material, timed ahead of the autumn Budget, and its baseline and inflation measure are choices that affect the size of the numbers. The direction of travel is supported by independent analysis from bodies such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, even if precise figures vary. The practical consequences of squeezed budgets tend to be fewer adults in school, larger classes, and the quiet loss of things that do not show up in exam results. For individual families, the most useful steps are looking up your own school's figures, claiming any entitlements you qualify for, and knowing that curriculum activities in school hours cannot be charged for. Sources: Schools Week, 'Schools lost £4.5 billion to real-terms cuts in 16 years, report warns', 10 September 2026, https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-lost-4-5-billion-to-real-terms-cuts-in-16-years-report-warns/; Stop School Cuts coalition (NEU, NAHT, ASCL), school funding report, September 2026, https://schoolcuts.org.uk/; Institute for Fiscal Studies, annual report on education spending in England, https://ifs.org.uk/ This article is for general information and does not replace advice from your child's school, local authority, or a qualified professional.

#school funding#education policy#NEU#NAHT#ASCL#budget

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