Budget cuts ‘need not affect teaching quality’

The link between a bigger budget and better student performance is a myth, according to the authors of a Reform report called “Must do better”.

The body said 18 per cent could be slashed from the schools budget at the next Parliament without this affecting quality of teaching.

Kimberley Trewhitt, co-author of the report, said: “This analysis breaks new ground by looking at primary schools as well as secondary.

“Lifting the ring-fence on the budget will help schools think harder about how best to use their resources. Their top priority should be improvement in the quality of their teachers as this is what really matters for pupil performance.”

The report compared funding of almost all primary and secondary schools in the country to pupils’ achievement in English and Maths and found there was no link between them. It also failed to find a correlation between a bigger budget and better quality of teaching.

While they admitted the idea of cutting the ring-fenced budget would be controversial, the authors claimed the results of their survey showed many schools are over-funded.

The think tank described current policy on the schools budget as “contradictory and confused”.