Staffordshire schools, always badly funded compared with other local
education authorities, has seen a slight improvement under the new funding
formula announced by the Government. With the new system, now known as the
dedicated schools grant, Staffordshire is now 132nd worst funded out of 149
local education authorities in England and Wales. (There are 150
authorities, but the Isles of Scilly have special funding arrangements).
This now makes Staffordshire 18th from the bottom – an improvement from
being 5th from the bottom in recent years.

Michael Fabricant, who obtained this information in a Parliamentary Question
to the Minister for Schools, Jacqui Smith, says "While this is a slight
improvement, Staffordshire school children still get a raw deal from the
Government compared with those in other parts of England.

"Staffordshire schools are allocated £3,381 per pupil while schools in
Birmingham will receive £4,000 and schools in the City of London receive
£6,708. So for a school of 1,600 pupils, a Birmingham headteacher will
receive £6,400,000 (just under £1 million more than a Staffordshire
headteacher who will receive £5,409,600) and a school in the City of London
will receive £10,732,800 – over £5 million more than a similar school of
the same size in Staffordshire.

"This is still grossly unfair and the promise made by New Labour back in
1997 to provide equal and fair funding for Staffordshire schools remains
broken."

The funding per pupil for every local education authority is shown in the
table below.