Education spending in England: launch of 2019 annual report

• Download the slides from this event
• Read the report launched at this event

Over the last 30 years, there have been significant changes to the level and structure of education spending in England. How have these changes affected spending per pupil across the different phases of education over time and how will they evolve in the next few years? Such questions have become much more prominent in the public debate over the last few years.

To inform such debates, IFS researchers will be releasing their second annual report on education spending in England, supported by the Nuffield Foundation. This will provide consistent measures of day-to-day spending per pupil in England across the four main stages of education (early years, schools, further education and sixth forms, and higher education) stretching back to the early 1990s. This will update and refine the measures contained in our first annual report.

With potentially two spending reviews to be undertaken over the next year, this second annual report will focus on the options facing policymakers for education spending. How much would it cost to increase the early years entitlement and protect the hourly funding rate? How much would it cost to reverse past cuts to school spending per pupil? How much would it cost to reverse the even larger cuts to further education and sixth forms? What would be the potential costs and effects of implementing the recommendations of the Augar review of post-18 education funding?  

At this event, IFS researchers will present key findings from this new report, focusing on issues such as:

• How has spending on the entitlement to free early education and childcare provision changed over time? Which factors have driven these changes? How has spending on children’s services changed over time?
• How has school spending per pupil changed over time and how will it evolve over the next few years? This will also include new analysis of differences and trends in spending per pupil across the four nations of the UK.
• How has spending on further education and sixth forms changed over time? How has spending on adult education and apprenticeships changed?
• How have public resources going into Higher Education in England changed following successive reforms to higher education funding? What would be the potential effects of implementing the recommendations of the review of post-18 education funding?