So when do things get better?
Contrary to its election pledges, and to everything it tells us, education is no longer New Labour's top priority. This government spends less on our schools than John Major. The new battle cry is 'Health! Health! Health!'
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Your support makes all the difference.Education has lost its position as the Prime Minister's favourite public service. In the run-up to the 1997 general election, schools were singled out as the Labour Party's key target for attention. Three years and a flu epidemic later, health is now the PM's pet. In the recent Budget, education came a poor second in the allocation of Chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-election cash hand-out.
Education has lost its position as the Prime Minister's favourite public service. In the run-up to the 1997 general election, schools were singled out as the Labour Party's key target for attention. Three years and a flu epidemic later, health is now the PM's pet. In the recent Budget, education came a poor second in the allocation of Chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-election cash hand-out.
Education has, understandably, gone in for a fair amount of soul-searching about whether or not Labour will live up to its 1997 promises to put an end to the lean years of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Health may have grabbed more of the nation's growth-generated resources in the years since Tony Blair took power, but just how well or badly has education really done?
The recent Budget announced the likely pattern of public spending right up to the next election, so it is possible to judge Labour. In particular, it is possible to compare the present administration with Major's hapless and wounded governments. Table 1 shows changes in education expenditure, in real terms, for each year from 1991-92 to 1996-97 - the full period of Major's years in power.
Over the whole period of Major's leadership, public expenditure on education rose by 13.3 per cent, or 2.25 per cent per year. The increases came in the earlier years. Tony Blair's government has now been in power for almost three years. Table 2 gives up-to-date figures for overall spending for 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000 in England. Thus, in Labour's first three years, education expenditure rose by 3.8 per cent, or 1.25 per cent per year. It is almost inconceivable that the average figure will overhaul Major's government's spending rate by the date of the next election.
The reason for the modesty of Labour's expenditure increases since taking office in 1997 is widely understood. Having agreed to live within former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke's public expenditure plans for the first two years in power, the Blair administration has only been able to start increasing spending more rapidly in 1999-2000. The year just started, 2000-2001, will almost certainly see education spending rise by 2 to 3 per cent in real terms. The debate about how far the Government is (or is not) increasing education expenditure will ramble on. The present administration has set itself up for years of pressure from schools, colleges and from universities. Expectations have been stoked up in education just as much as in health: thus the Budget commitment to feed more cash into education in the years ahead.
But there is a big problem for Labour - and indeed for the Conservatives, who have promised to match any education spending plans in place at the time of the next election. Even if extra money can be found, it is impossible to ensure that every local education authority, school and college gets extra money every year.
Changing school rolls, the vagaries of the Revenue Support Grant (whereby money is channelled to local authorities) and oddities in college funding formulae mean that even in years when spending is growing, there will be some losers.
Worse still, losers complain while gainers tend to keep quiet. In fact, the question of whether public expenditure on education is going up or down is generally more complex than the simple figures in the tables above suggest.
Horrors of re-classification of spending from local to central government, or the move from student grants to loans, or capital expenditure financed from asset sales can badly distort year-on-year comparisons. Even overall UK or England figures for all public spending on education can be affected by changes of this kind.
Then there is the question of who is making the comparisons and what they are trying to prove. Thus, the Government - whether this one or its predecessor - strains to present education spending in the most positive light possible. Increases in expenditure and improved performance are highlighted, while less desirable features are down-played or not mentioned. The way things are presented demands a considerable amount of questioning and sharp wits.
Take, for example, the opening statement in the DfEE's new departmental report (which includes spending plans for 2000-2001 and 2001-2002) about schools. Chapter 9 is entitled School Funding and begins: "Finance underpins all improvement in schools. The Government has put substantial extra resources into education: for 2000-2001, the Government's plans allow for an underlying increase of £2.2bn to be spent on education".
This all reads very well. "Schools", "increase" and "£2.2bn" are the key words. But what about a bit of deconstruction? Take the first sentence: "Finance underpins all improvement in schools". Well, yes, it probably does. But then finance underpins all meals in schools, or all trains on tracks for that matter. Notice that finance "underpins" improvement.
The Government is careful not to suggest a causal link between finance and improvement, only a bit of underpinning. "Substantial" is a nice word, but it is, nevertheless, simply a judgement. And then there is the awkwardness of "extra".
Extra compared with what? Kenneth Clarke's final plans? The previous Comprehensive Spending Review figure? Last year's plans for last year? Last year's actual spending? Last year's plans for this year?
Then we reach the mysterious concept of "an underlying increase". Is this different from a boring common-or-garden increase? Is an underlying increase underpinned?
Why bother qualifying the word at all, unless there was a risk the actual rise will be less than £2.2bn? If there is such a risk, why not just say that the Government has done its best to make sure that £2.2bn of extra money will be spent on education? (This is probably the truth).
Finally, we arrive at the jackpot itself, the £2.2bn. Remember, we are still under a heading entitled School Funding, so it would be very easy to imagine that the full £2.2bn is about to be fed into schools.
But read carefully, the sentence actually says the £2.2bn is "to be spent on education". In fact, an unstated proportion of the £2.2bn will be spent on schools. Education standard spending assessments (schools' core spending allocations) rise by a little over £1bn in 2000-2001. Part of the £2.2bn will be used outside theschools sector.
It is necessary to be alert to the precise meaning of what is written in government publications. None of this is any worse than the kind of material the Conservatives used to publish. Indeed, it was the Tories who first started brightening the departmental report by putting charming photographs of ministers in it. Presentation of otherwise dry facts and figures about spending and performance needs brightening.
But there is a thin dividing line - which governments seem increasingly happy to cross - between public information and propaganda.
Overall, the news from the DfEE's departmental report is actually rather good. Despite considerable constraints on expenditure in recent years, education spending in England was, startlingly, only 2 per cent higher in real terms in 1999-2000 than in 1994-1995. Yet in the intervening period, attainment in schools, colleges and universities has continued to improve. This extraordinary value-for-money outcome is, of course, double-edged for the education service.
On the one hand, it should assist David Blunkett, the Secretary of State for Education, and his colleagues in their bids to the 2000 Spending Review: education delivers real and quantifiable results. On the other hand, the Treasury can happily observe that even with restricted access to additional resources, education can deliver improvements. So why bother giving it more cash?
For a government that prides itself on producing public services that improve from year to year, education is a far better bet than health: the benefits can be measured in a range of rigorous ways. There is really no reason for the DfEE to overplay the successes of schools, colleges and universities: modest increases in resourcing have produced considerable benefits for society.
In contrast, most commentators appear to believe that the vast sums about to be flooded into health will do little or nothing to reduce the NHS's capacity to consume resources with no apparent improvement in quality.
But there is no easy way out. Education and health spending are for this Government what defence, police and law and order were for the Conservatives. Labour cannot escape the expectations it has set up for itself when it incanted the mantra "education, education, education".
Money must be found for such provision or core supporters will be disappointed. Disappointed supporters mean low turnouts at elections and low turnouts spell disaster for Labour.
Education may not be as all-important as it originally was for Tony Blair, but it still matters. The next general election will test just how much.
The writer is the director of a research centre at the London School of Economics
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