NUT Cymru warns of pupil funding squeeze

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-33415332

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The amount of money spent on each pupil in Wales has decreased for the first time in over a decade, according to the latest official figures.

Gross per-pupil spending next year will be £5,526, a year-on-year decrease of 1.1% or £64.

Unions have warned budgets are being squeezed so staff are losing jobs.

The Welsh government said it was "extremely proud" to have sheltered schools through tough times from the worst of the cuts.

The funding for 2015/16 can be broken down into £4,629 per pupil given directly to schools and £898 per pupil retained by councils for centrally funded school services.

The figures show the disparity between how much money different councils receive.

Cardiff has the largest increase of 1.6% in gross schools expenditure with Torfaen having the largest decrease at 3.9%.

The amount of money spent on each pupil had increased every year for over a decade until last year.

Owen Hathway, NUT Cymru's policy officer said it was the knock on impact of budgets being cut from Westminster.

"We do have sympathy for that position," he said.

"However, that will not change the fact that this decrease in funding will come as alarming news to teachers, parents and pupils, especially given the historic underfunding of education in Wales.

'Very challenging'

"Make no mistake, we are seeing some of the most difficult funding issues ever faced by Welsh education."

Mr Hathway said schools were being forced to make staff redundant and class sizes were increasingly becoming a problem.

"In recent years we have seen some really good results for Welsh education," he added.

"That is going to be very hard to maintain, let alone improve upon, with ever decreasing finances."

A Welsh Government spokesperson said: "Let us be clear about one thing, we have met our commitment to increase funding for Welsh schools by 1% above the money we receive from Westminster.

"This has meant an additional £106m has been made available for Welsh schools over the course of this assembly term."

The spokesperson said councils had also played their part, while additional funding had been made through the pupil deprivation grant.

"We have been completely transparent about the very challenging financial position that we're facing," said the spokesperson.

"By 2015-16 the Welsh budget will be nearly £1.7bn less than it was in 2010-11 as a result of the UK Government's cuts. Nevertheless our commitment to schools funding remains firm."