That’s the warning of the chair of a Lancashire academy trust who says increases to wages and energy bills are outstripping the funding provided by the Government. Lesley Gwinnett is CEO of Endeavour Learning Trust , a chain of six schools in South Ribble, West Lancashire and North Sefton, and says difficult decisions are being made to deal with increasingly squeezed school budgets.
In the short term, the focus is on managing the impact of rising expenditure. Lesley said: “Our fuel bills have trebled. A school the size of Ormskirk costs £350,000 whereas previously it was £100,000. “We would like to do more trips with the kids, either in the school days or residential stays abroad or in the UK. In the past, we would subsidise the most vulnerable pupils so they don’t have to miss out if their families can’t afford it but you have to look at whether that’s possible.”
Without anything changing the direction of travel, Lesley fears that schools will be left with unwelcome options such as reducing staffing, increasing class sizes and cutting back the curriculum. The problems are not limited to specific areas or types of schools but the argument in support of academies is that admin, finance, facilities can be spread across multiple sites rather than each school having its own.