NATIONAL FUNDING FORMULA
Schools in Gloucestershire have been historically underfunded due to an outdated funding system. As the Secretary of State for Education outlined, "Our school funding system as it exists today is unfair, opaque and outdated. What has been created over time is a funding system that allows similar schools with similar students to receive levels of funding so different that they put some young people at an educational disadvantage."
This is a situation which cannot continue and this is a matter I have campaigned on for many years. Therefore, I welcome that it is this Conservative Government that has made a commitment to introducing a fairer funding formula for our schools. The Government has undertaken a consultation on the issue and on the 14th of December the Secretary of State, Justine Greening, laid out the Government's broad proposals on how we can ensure we achieve fairer funding for all schools through the new formula.
Today I held a useful meeting at Shire Hall with four other Gloucestershire MPs, council staff and school reps to discuss ways of ensuring better funding for our local schools following the government's announcement. A consultation on the funding formula runs until March 2017 which you can access here.
I look forward to moving forward in implementation of this formula, which we have waited on for many years, so that our schools have adequate funding in order to carry out their excellent work.