AAR0001

Written evidence submitted by the Catholic Education Service 

Executive summary 

The CES has worked closely in partnerships with DfE officials to ensure that schools and academies in dioceses are given the support they need to continue teaching during these unprecedented times. We spoke to staff across England about the experience in their diocese had with the Financial Sustainability of schools and academies and the support they had from the DfE. They reported:

• Catholic dioceses support academisation as it allows them to improve efficiency of schools as well providing greater financial transparency and accountability.
• Funding has increased in real terms over the past 5 years, but it is not necessarily enough to keep up with rapidly rising costs.
• Some additional costs incurred due to the COVID pandemic are still causing a significant burden on some schools.
• Commitment to funding on longer term basis would allow schools to plan their finances more effectively.
• PFI contracts can be too proscriptive and narrow focused and being given more discretion over spending would be more useful.

Introduction 

The CES represents all Catholic schools in England and Wales on behalf of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference. We are the second largest provider of schools in England, with 10% of the national total of maintained schools in England. The Catholic Church is the single largest provider of secondary schools in the country and the second largest provider of primary schools, due to our rich history and experience of providing education, developed over hundreds of years. There are more than 2200 Catholic Schools in England across 19 dioceses, meaning that the Catholic sector is the second largest national provider of education and currently educates over 850,000 pupils. Due partly to historical Catholic migration to the UK and partly due to the Catholic mission of serving the poor, Catholic schools have more pupils from deprived backgrounds than the national average. 

Support for academisation

Catholic dioceses that oversee schools have strategies to bring the Catholic community together by creating families of schools within multi-academy trusts. This multi-academy trusts support the schools to work more efficiently in partnership and share resources. This enables better financial transparency of the academies within the trust and, allows for academies to be more accountable.

The increase of schools funding in real terms, in a way that takes account of cost pressures

Many dioceses have indicated that while funding has increased in real terms, it may not be fully meeting the increase pressure of rising costs. One Catholic diocese gave the figures of the increases in funding and costs in their schools on average since 2015/16, with funding increasing by 16.34% but staffing costs rising by 19.89%.

Distribution of DfE funding in line with it’s objectives

Several Catholic dioceses have reported that when the DfE gives extra funding, it can be too proscriptive in how a school or academy can use these funds to meet stated objectives. For example, Bursary is very narrow in terms of how it can be used and so makes much less impact than pupil premium. Another example are the Covid expenses that schools and academies incurred in terms of providing staff with the means to work from home, which were genuine COVID expenses but weren’t covered by the DfE guidelines and the claims for which were subsequently rejected.

Support for schools to improve their financial position 

Dioceses reported that the DfE have provided tools and facilitated some useful training sessions, but their initiatives make extra work for little gain. Dioceses reported that what would most help their schools to strategically improve their financial position would be to commit to their funding and pay policy on a rolling 3-year basis, so they can plan longer term budgets accordingly. Longer term financial planning has also been significantly disrupted by the costs of the COVID pandemic, either through home working expenses claims which have been rejected by the DfE or cashflow issues around providing support for disadvantaged children.

PFI contracts

One problem for financial sustainability of schools with PFI agreements is a tendency for maintenance and renovation work to replace materials with no consideration given for available improvements. An example is windows or heating systems being replaced with similar quality products. This is a missed opportunity to improve financial sustainability for schools, as well as helping them meet new environmental and climate change policies undertaken by their dioceses. A general lack of transparency about legacy funds of PFI contracts can also be problematic and could lead to significant disputes when the agreements expire. The first set of PFI agreements for any Catholic schools or academies are due to expire by 2025.

January 2022