Pupil numbers in Welsh primary schools are declining meaning less money to employee teachers, a council leader has said. Andrew Morgan, who leads one of Wales’ biggest authorities said that there are, on average 10 less pupils in each of their primary schools each year.
As there is a link between pupil numbers and funding, he said if a school loses 20 children from its roll in two years, they would also lose £70,000 to £80,000 a year. “We’ll end up losing certainly least one teacher or teaching assistant. That’s what we’ve seen as a pattern,” he said.
He was speaking at the Senedd’s finance committee and committee member, Labour MS Mike Hedges said estimates showing school numbers were declining created two problems.
“That creates two different problems. One is that school budgets are based upon pupil numbers, so some schools start losing numbers and they start having serious problems. And secondly, it’s good that the amount of money we spend per pupil is increasing but won’t the education budget be out of sync with the rest of the council budget?”
Mr Morgan said: “Pupil numbers is impacting on our schools in terms of staff levels.
“A significant proportion of funding to schools follows the number of children on seats in effect and generally in RCT, although it’s not every school, I was looking at this last year and we’ve probably seen around 10, as an average figure, around ten children per primary school reduction, each year. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
“If a school over two years loses 20 children off its roll, that’s in excess of £70 or £80,000 reduction in funding. So therefore we’ll end up losing certainly least one teacher or teaching assistant. That’s what we’ve seen as a pattern.
“This financial year, we did see a reduction in teaching staff across RCT but that was heavily driven by pupil numbers.
“Looking at projections of the birth rates coming through, that projection is going to continue certainly for the next few years.”
Lis Burnett from Vale of Glamorgan council said there is a “dip” at the moment in pupil numbers in her council area but “it will come back up”. “There is a dip at primary school at the moment, but our secondary schools are rammed,” she said.
Mr Hedges made the point that because that figure of 10 is an average, there will be differences depending on the popularity of schools. “The very popular schools will just increase in number and the less popular schools will end up having more than that 10 which does create local problems.”
Nia Jeffreys, from Gwynedd council, said they have to look to the future in terms of demographics. “I remember I was in school and was looking at this triangle in terms of how many younger and older people that are, but already that, triangle is inverted. There are so many more older people in our society, fewer younger people and the need for carers and so forth. So the demographic changes are happening and it’s important that we can plan over the medium term and the longer term,” she said.