Concern over fairness of funding

Buckinghamshire has received an extra £18million for the 2015/16 financial year, which unlike previous years has to be distributed evenly across all schools.

But councillor and former mayor Niknam Hussain has expressed concerns about the way the money is distributed.

He says that it is wrong 
that schools which have ‘greater challenges’ such as The Mandeville, Oak Green and Thomas Hickman schools would now receive the same share of per pupil funding as the Aylesbury grammar schools.

He said: “The government has the pupil premium, which says that if you have pupils on free school meals we will give you an extra bit of money to spend on them.

“But on the other side they are taking it away, and that seems strange.

“By definition schools that are in deprived areas have bigger issues and difficulties, and this has been recognised before.”

The comments come as Bucks’ Schools Forum closed its consultation on the changes.

The forum will deliver its recommendations to the Government’s Education Funding Agency, which will then make a final decision on the funding proposal.