Published at 15:45, Wednesday, 28 April 2010

LABOUR must be facing next week with trepidation: the Conservatives with expectation: the Lib-Dems with thoughts of real influence in a hung administration.

But if there is no clear majority, we, the electorate, will groan, thinking a second election likely within months. The only certainty is that all sectors of education face cuts in real terms and public sector workers will be restricted to pay settlements held at a maximum of one per cent for two years from 2011.

Universities already face cuts in 2010/11 which will leave many well-qualified students without a place.

The Pre-Budget Report last December announced a £600 million slashing of university budgets by 2013 on top of £180 million ‘efficiency savings’ expected by 2011 and a further £135 million demanded by the Secretary of State in the same period.

The March Budget announcement of a one-off investment of £270 million to help create 20,000 more places in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects will only slightly ease the pain.

Further education faces major cuts to its adult education budgets, with one in four places disappearing including courses aimed at adults previously failed by the education system. Although the Schools’ Secretary has promised no cuts to school budgets, schools have nevertheless been advised how to save £1 billion.

The DCSF has to find a £1.1 billion contribution to the Chancellor’s £11 billion of ‘efficiency savings’. £100 million will be saved by ending extended schools start-up funding.

And quangos under the cosh include the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) – £45 million over two years – and the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) – £55 million.

Quangocracy will be under threat whoever wins next week. The Government has conducted a review and proposes to cut 140, some 30 from the education and training system. This would still leave over 600. Conservatives have promised a ‘bonfire of bureaucracy’.

At the same time, they seem intent on spending money and time and energy on new structures. They propose reverting to a Department concentrating on schools, further education and universities and dismantling recent Machinery of Government changes by returning to a Further Education Funding Council.

Children’s social services, de-coupled from education, would be targeted on the most vulnerable with implications for child protection and inter-agency working.

There will be an emergency Budget if the Conservatives win. But whatever the outcome next Thursday, the spending review later this year will be excessively tough – ‘tighter than the Thatcher years’.

Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk