While there was little of note for schools in yesterday’s budget speech and government documents, a forecast buried in a spending watchdog document has raised alarm for some. The Office for Budget Responsibility, in its latest economic and fiscal outlook document, predicted spending on mainstream schools will fall by 2 per cent in real terms between 2028-29 and 2031-32. This has prompted the Liberal Democrats to criticise “real terms cuts to schools”, with its spokesperson Caroline Voaden warning school budgets are “gutted year on year”. And in the House of Commons yesterday, Conservative MP Mike Wood said the budget contained the “hidden promise of 2.6 per cent annual spending cuts, which includes those 2 per cent a year cuts from mainstream schools every year, after the next general election”. What the forecast actually means However, it’s important to note that the OBR’s forecast is based on a pretty big assumption: that spending on the core mainstream schools budget will be “held flat per pupil in real terms as a policy-neutral baseline”. As Luke Sibieta from the Institute for Fiscal Studies more plainly puts it: “This is not a planned cut to funding. “To illustrate the fiscal choices available to the government in the next spending review period after 2028, the OBR have assumed that mainstream school funding per pupil will be frozen in real-terms. Total funding therefore falls in line with pupil numbers.” The government has made no such decision, so the OBR’s forecast is purely academic. Big political choice Pupil numbers have now passed a tipping point, and will fall across the country in the years to come. And Sibieta says the “actual path for funding will be determined by the government in next year’s spending review”. Chancellor John Healey could, for example, use the headroom to raise per-pupil funding, as unions have called for. This would have obvious advantages for schools that, despite recent increases in funding, still face a pretty dire financial situation. Many cannot afford the pay rises implemented this year. Rising energy costs are a concern. And schools are still often having to plug the gaps left by other public services around them that were cut back under austerity. This is a political choice as well as an economic one. Cutting total school funding would save the Treasury a lot of money at a time when it has vowed to spend more on defence and when it is focused on alleviating the cost of living on individuals. But given how badly real-terms cuts go down in the sector, arguing for cash-terms decreases in the schools budget would be a tough prospect for any politician. Was there any good news for schools? The budget was very light on education in general. As ASCL’s Julia Harnden points out, the chancellor “spoke for an hour and the word ‘education’ did not pass his lips even once”. Budget documents were similarly devoid of new policies, with few relevant to schools. They confirm funding to the Department for Education “will increase by £60 million per year to contribute to the cost of new PE and sport partnerships, due to be rolled out in England in 2027”. However, the partnerships had already been announced, and their funding represents a cut compared to the previous PE and sport premium for primary schools. The DfE has also pledged £5 million a year for three years from 2027-28 to “increase the provision of books for pre-school children”. This money will go to organisations like the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and BookTrust. The budget also included £15 million in funding for the Office for the Impact Economy (OIE) to be invested in schemes over three years “that could include mentoring for young people, workplace training and communications campaigns to improve outcomes and safety for women and girls across the UK”.