Pupil cash plan doesn’t add up

THE Coalition’s plans to reward schools taking extra pupils from deprived homes was branded a “con” after a study suggested it would mean less funding in Oldham.

House of Commons research shows areas currently receiving extra cash would lose out under the plan.

Those areas include Oldham, which receives more than the English average through the current complicated system of grants.

That average was about £4,860 per pupil in 2009-10 — but in Oldham the allocation was £4,970.

The conclusion is hugely damaging for Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who has repeatedly hailed the pupil premium as proof of the Coalition’s commitment to fairness and tackling poverty.

Labour’s shadow education secretary Andy Burnham said: “The reality is a pupil premium con, where funding is recycled to more affluent areas.

“It will create winners and losers and, scandalously, the biggest losers are predicted to be schools in the most deprived areas of England.”

But Lib-Dem schools minister Sarah Teather insisted there would be a real terms increase in school funding.

And she said: “The pupil premium will provide £2.5bn extra, on top of the baseline. Let me remind you that is £2.5bn more than Labour would have been prepared to put in.”