Inquiry5

The Children, Young People and Education Committee conducted an inquiry into the sufficiency of school funding in Wales and the way school budgets are determined and allocated.

The inquiry focused on:

·         the sufficiency of provision for school budgets, in the context of other public service budgets and available resources;

·         the extent to which the level of provision for school budgets complements or inhibits delivery of the Welsh Government’s policy objectives;

·         the relationship, balance and transparency between various sources of schools’ funding, including core budgets and hypothecated funding;

·         the local government funding formula and the weighting given to education and school budgets specifically within the Local Government Settlement;

·         Welsh Government oversight of how Local Authorities set individual schools’ budgets including, for example, the weighting given to factors such as age profile of pupils, deprivation, language of provision, number of pupils with Additional Learning Needs and pre-compulsory age provision;

·         progress and developments since previous Assembly Committees’ reviews (for example those of the Enterprise and Learning Committee in the Third Assembly); and

·         the availability and use of comparisons between education funding and school budgets in Wales and other UK nations.

A Research Blog provided further detail on School Funding in Wales.

Evidence gathering

On 16 January 2019 the Committee held a roundtable event to inform its inquiry into School Funding. The purpose of the roundtable discussion was to enable Members to gather the views and experiences on the sufficiency of school funding in Wales and the way school budgets are determined and allocated. A summary note of the roundtable event has been produced.

Report

Report on School Funding in Wales (PDF 1.61MB) – 10 July 2019

Welsh Government Response (PDF 433KB) - 9 September 2019

Plenary Debate

The plenary debate on the Committee’s report took place on Wednesday 23 October 2019.