£800m smooths funding changes

Schools in England were last week offered an extra £800m to stabilise the school funding system and avoid a repeat of this year's funding crisis. Education secretary Charles Clarke also set out the Government's framework to the funding system for the next two years. He said it would address concerns including differences in funding increases between local schools in similar circumstances; headteachers and governing bodies unable to plan budgets on a long-term basis with confidence; turbulence caused by changes to the way specific grants were allocated; cost pressures on individual schools; the level of spending by local authorities on central...