I work in the Higher Education Sector, and we know that our budgets will be cut by millions of pounds, and apparantly we will be able to set our own fees to make up the shortfall... however, even though our budgets will be cut, the Govt still wants the same amount, or more, of people getting degrees. Ridiculous!
Surely we should be investing more in vocational courses, so that people don't feel the need to get their families into debt to get a degree...

Only time will tell whether free schools will make any difference.A schools budget is created in many ways. Some of it comes as chunks which can only be spent on set areas. Other parts are based on pupil numbers, then you get so much more for children who are on free school meals. It is a very complicated formula and no one school will get the same amount. Then different schools will have varied expenditure, a more expensive staff, less revenue through out of schools use, greater ground/water rates etc etc.

Private schools run very well as they have MAJOR £££ due to the fees. They can afford to employ who they choose rather than employ a younger teacher because the budget won't allow you to buy in someone more experienced. Their facilities are well funded and generally the children tend to come from a particular socio-economic group.There are also entrance exams which mean they are only taking the top ability children. It is essentially a business funded by the client.

State schools can never be run this way as there could NEVER be this amount of expenditure put into education...This is one reason why the extended services were created so they could be shared amongst clusters of schools or within an authority.

The new academies are essentially state schools who will buy out of LA services and choose to either buy back services from the LA or get those services from private providers. the problem here is that a two tier sysytem will develop as if the extended services do not have sufficient buy back they become financially less viable and will be reduced, Hence we will have the schools that have and the schools that don't.....I wait with interest to see how this all works....

I appreciate that there needs to be cuts within every sector. Those in the private sector have already been through the "will my contract be renewed" scenario. This is now facing the public sector. I can only hope though that this is done with proper knowledge and efficiency and the right cuts are made. We are all in for a bumpy ride and the ripples in the pond will reach far and wide......We do however need to realise we are in this together and the point and accuse mentality serves no purpose in such a scenario.Those losing their jobs are just the tip of the ice-berg.

That's the way I see it too, live within your means, the private sector has had job cuts and redundancies for decades, employers are forever restructuring and the employees end up on short term contracts and having to repply for their jobs all the time. It's time the public sector learnt if the money isn't available you can't spend it and borrowing is no longer an option.

I completely agree with this. We seem to be in a society where every child is expected to go to university....Yet many jobs should not need a degree to fulfill the skills base.

Yes it's pen pushing which has been caused by Acts of Parliament, such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I would welcome fewer pen pushers. We have whole departments of pen pushers who all work very hard.

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Yes it's pen pushing which has been caused by Acts of Parliament, such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I would welcome fewer pen pushers. We have whole departments of pen pushers who all work very hard.


so if these acts of parliments changed would it be ok for the pushers of pens to lose their jobs?

Yes, it would be part of a necessary streamlining process.

Thanks! I found this very interesting and enlightening, I just didn't know how it all worked. What I would like to compare is, say a private school (like the one up the road from me), where they board them, they feed them, they educate them, very highly in fact, they go on to Oxford and Cambridge from this school, I'd like to compare their income from fees, the amount of pupils, to a public school with the same amount of cash being filtered into it with a similar amount of pupils and just see how it all compares? That would be really interesting! As somebody else has said, when it's a private company, every penny is accounted for, but when it's Government money coming in, I'm sure there's a lot of it that goes "wrong", is that the word, or maybe just wasted or lost perhaps? It's the same difference to me, doesn't matter where the money comes from be it fees or Government funded none of it should be wasted, and if private schools can do it, why can't the others? I know you said there is a huge difference in the amount of input cashwise, but IS there I wonder?

and thats what the government are doing now

streamlining.

hurrah we agree

Well they are, but a lot of the cuts are going to be front line services not back room pen-pushers. I just wish that they had spent more time looking behind the scenes before the axe fell. To reduce bureaucracy would mean changing the law which hasn't happened.