Delighted that my review of school funding in Wales for @wgmin_education has been published today.

A thread on the main findings and recommendations [1/16] https://gov.wales/review-school-spending-wales

School spending per learner fell by 6% in real-terms between 2009-10 and 2018-19. That’s about the same as the real-terms fall in the total block grant from the UK govt over the same period [2/16]

A raft of high-quality evidence across countries/contexts shows high benefits to extra spending on schools. A 10% rise in spending improves educational outcomes by 7-10%, with even larger effects for more disadvantaged learners [3/16]

The Welsh Govt and LAs should be basing policy and spending decisions around such evidence [4/16]

This is particularly important in the current pandemic where school resources are clearly under pressure and educational inequalities are likely to have widened [5/16]

The school funding system currently provides about £650-£700 or 15-20% extra to the most deprived schools. However, there is little extra for schools with just above average deprivation & some highly deprived schools don’t receive much extra funding [6/16]

The Welsh Govt should be prioritizing extra funding for more disadvantaged schools, and doing so in a clear and transparent way, e.g. an expanded PDG that accounts for the rising phenomenon of in-work poverty [7/16]

Schools with sixth forms receive little extra funding per learner as compared with other secondary schools. This makes is hard to deliver a high-quality post-16 offer. The Welsh govt should be prioritizing any extra funding for sixth forms (and post-16 colleges) [8/16]

The system is far too complicated and can often lead to differences in spending per learner between similar schools of £1,500 or over 35% [9/16]

Local authority funding formulae should be simpler & more transparent. It should be easy to understand why two schools in different LAs get different funding levels. Data on spending should be clearer, e.g. service-level agreement spending should be detailed separately [10/16]

The regional consortia receive a large amount of attention. But they only spend 1% of total school spending. Grants to and data on spending by the regional consortia should be much simpler [11/16]

I concluded that the Welsh Govt should not adopt a single minimum cost for use in a funding system. There is not enough evidence to do this & it could risk undoing key strengths of the current system: local autonomy and knowledge [12/16]

The Welsh Govt can and should provide more information on how costs are likely to grow over time. This could never be a guarantee of funding. But it would provide a high-profile benchmark to judge the decisions made by the Welsh Govt, LAs and the UK govt [13/16]

For example, I calculate costs per learner could grow by 8% if the Welsh Govt adopts a similar approach to England on £30,000 starting salaries and above-inflation rises in other pay scales [14/16]

The new ALN system is a big transformation of support. I don’t doubt the expectation that this will be cost-neutral. But there is a lot of risk too. Welsh Govt & LAs should keep the system under review to ensure learners receive the support they need [15/16]

Thank you to officials, LAs & unions who have provided very valuable feedback & support over this review

Thank you to staff across schools & LAs for everything they do every day. Keeping the show on the road in very difficult times & instilling a love of learning [16/16]