THE CHANCELLOR on Monday announced his comprehensive spending review, the third he has made that promises much the same things: better schools, better hospitals, better everything. So far there has been a notable failure to deliver.

The Conservative opposition has said that reform of the system is needed, and that throwing money at a problem will not solve anything without better delivery. Various commentators have asked for examples of this assertion.

I would like to rise to this challenge by concentrating on just one small aspect, that of the new money for schools. On Monday I received an email from a Brentwood school that a large number of Ongar pupils attend. I will not name the school to protect it from political reprisal.

The head teacher wrote to me to say that the £50,000 was largely a "mirage". A typical secondary school will have to pay back £40,000 immediately to Mr Brown to cover the one per cent increase in national insurance, which the head teacher described as "a sleight of hand if ever there was one".

Under the scheme announced by the Government on Tuesday, local education authorities will be obliged to "passport" a defined block of money to schools. However, the local education authority will have the power to move money from one allocation to another, effectively rendering the passport process meaningless.

Earlier this year there was a wholesale mishandling of the restructuring of finance to sixth forms. Owing to the lack of foresight by the Government and a very late decision to allow local education authorities to hold money back from sixth forms, the head teacher lost £183,000 from his school's budget and secondary schools in Brentwood lost £750,000.

The new funding formula for councils announced by the Government last week will see Essex's education lose £47m. Compared with these massive losses, the £50,000 looks small beer indeed.

July 18, 2002 08:30