An extra £200 million was promised for the refurbishment of primary school buildings and £250 million for child services – but experts say that the settlement still represents a significant cut.

In addition to the £1.15 billion committed in the Budget and the £550 million left over from the last spending review, the new money for primary schools will create a pot of nearly £2 billion for the refurbishment of 675 schools in England by 2011.

Though welcome, this will not come close to covering the money needed to meet the Government’s aim of refurbishing half of all the 20,000 primary schools in England. And it is still only a fraction of the £45 billion budget earmarked for rebuilding secondary schools over the next 20 years.

It is likely that the extra £250 million for children’s services will be spread pretty thinly between education and social care services. Details of where the money is to be spent will be announced in in December, but it is expected that the schools element may be used to fund schemes such as catchup classes for stragglers and extension lessons for the most able.

The money will also be required to help schools to meet the new public service agreements targets, which include increasing the number of pupils with five good GCSEs, including maths and English, from 46 per cent to 53 per cent by 2011.

There are also new targets for improving the communication skills and emotional development of the underfives and for reducing the attainment gap between poorer and middle-class children of all ages.

A new target to improve children’s personal safety will focus on reducing bullying, with the schools watchdog, Ofsted, tasked with conducting an annual survey on the issue.

Yesterday’s settlement brings education spending up from £63.8 billion in 2007-8 to just over £74 billion a year by 2011. This money, most of which was announced in March, represents an increase of 2.8 per cent a year above inflation, but it will effectively halve the growth rate enjoyed by the sector every year since 1999.

For universities and adult skills, the increase is projected to be even lower, at 2 per cent a year in real terms, bringing spending from £14.2 billion in 2007-08 to £16.4 billion in 2010-11.

It is hard to see how the increase will help to fulfil the challenges outlined in last year’s Leitch report on adult skills. This said that the Government should aim to ensure that 40 per cent of adults gained degrees, up from 29 per cent, to help Britain to compete against China and India.

Overall, the settlement brings education spending up from 4.5 per cent of GDP in 1997 to 5.6 per cent this year. The figure is expected to flatline next year. This level of spending is only marginally higher than the average figure for the developed countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that spending at these levels was unlikely to be sufficient to address all the new initiatives that schools and colleges were being required to implement, notably the introduction next years of new vocational diplomas for students aged 14 to 19.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said that unless the Government matched the spending on further and higher education enjoyed by competitor countries, Britain risked being left behind.

Case study

Tabs Singh, 31, lives in Ipswich with his wife and four children, the youngest of whom is aged one and the oldest eight. He earns just under £40,000 as a retail communications manager at T-Mobile.

Mr Singh’s wife, Satwinda, is a full-time mother. “It works out cheaper than paying for childcare,” he said. The family’s home is valued at about £165,000 and mortgaged for about £80,000. Their costs include their two cars and private health insurance for about £400 a year. They receive family tax credit. “When my parents emigrated to Britain in the 1960s they came here to build a life for themselves and they worked hard. There should be a minimum standard of education and English demanded of migrants so the rest of us are not paying for them,” Mr Singh said. Among his family’s chief concerns are the tax burden on families and costs such as school uniform, he said.

He usually votes Lib Dem but is considering voting Conservative next time.

Impact £38 a year better off

Verdict “More spending on schools is good, but there is not much in this report for me. There are still insufficient incentives for mothers to go to work.” (Elizabeth Coleman)

Reactions

“The Chancellor has got off to a good start with his crackdown on loopholes and dodges that allow the super-rich to get away with not paying their fair share”

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison

“It is nothing short of outrageous that the Government is reneging on its promise to millions of children. They have set clear targets to end child poverty and are now backing away from them”

Hilary Fisher, director of the Campaign to End Child Poverty

“Education ministers will have to put a stop to the torrent of initiatives that we have had in recent years so that schools can use their funding on the core business of teaching and learning”

John Dunford, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders

“This substantial increase in funding will position the UK as a world leader in basic medical science and clinical research”

Professor Sir Michael Rutter, vice-president of the Academy of Medical Sciences

“Some parts of the public sector have received a very tight settlement. The Government must understand that it cannot expect public servants to fund this through further cuts [to] their pay”

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC

“This spending review marks the end of a period of huge growth in health spending. However, in a fiscally tight spending review, the NHS has done well compared with other departments”

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the health charity King’s Fund

“NHS trusts will find the 3 per cent efficiency saving target a real challenge, especially those who have recently emerged from financial deficit”

Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation

“The UK’s small business community will not be helped by increased business rates and a less generous capital gains scheme”

John Walker, of the Federation of Small Businesses

“A rise of just 1 per cent means that we are left with social care in name but not nature”

David Congdon, head of campaigns for Mencap

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