Responding to a report by the Education Policy Institute on school funding pressures, Cllr Richard Watts, Chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said:

“This report raises a number of concerns around the squeeze on council-maintained school funding, and in particular the possible impact on the quality of education children receive.

“Council-maintained schools are under significant funding pressures as a result of cuts to local authority budgets, an increase in wages and the additional costs of paying the Apprenticeship Levy.

“The introduction of the national funding formula for schools and reforms to high needs funding have exacerbated things further, by making it more difficult for councils to ‘top-up’ high needs funding in response to rising demand.

“Councils are clear that the Government should provide additional and ongoing funding to meet this need, otherwise councils may not be able to meet their statutory duties and children with high needs or disabilities could miss out on a mainstream education.

“As a minimum the Government needs to launch a fundamental review of high needs funding in order to ensure we meet the needs of our most vulnerable children.