New data has revealed that school budgets for full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers have soared across all regions in England for the academic year 2023-2024, compared to 2021-2022.<\/p>\n
The research, as part of the\u00a0\u2018School Budget Crisis Report\u2019\u00a0created by education software solution\u00a0Access Education, analysed government data on school funding and special education needs in a sample of 927 state-funded primary and secondary schools across 149 Local Authorities in England, for the academic years 2021-2022 and 2023-2024.<\/p>\n
The report highlights potential financial pitfalls for schools, taking into consideration spending on FTE, supply and education support teachers, SEN, energy and building maintenance.<\/p>\n
This comes amid findings that FTE teacher numbers grew modestly or declined year-on-year amid the ongoing teacher retention crisis, leaving schools at risk of severe financial strain.<\/p>\n
Schools in the West Midlands saw the biggest total expenditure change, soaring by 95% in the last academic year. The region also came out with the highest increase in spend on FTE teachers, rising by 90% from \u00a3121 million to \u00a3229 million in total. However, this correlates with the increase of total teacher count which rose by 75% in the region.<\/p>\n
Similarly, schools in the South East saw an increase in both FTE spending (24%) and teacher count (2.8%).\u00a0In comparison, spending on supply teachers rose from \u00a312.3 million to \u00a315.6 million, a 26% increase, while spending on education support staff increased by 29%, from \u00a391.5 million to \u00a3117 million. This highlights that schools in the region are increasingly relying on additional support staff to help meet educational needs.<\/p>\n