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I would imagine that Tory councils will be pressuring the Govt to continue some level of BSF funding, especially where the LA has already rebuilt some BSF schools. They may not want to have to face their local council electors & explain why their kids have to continue to learn in clapped out schools.
Local Govt elections come round more regularly than general elections, and people often vent their fury about national issues by taking it out on their local councillors.
A quick summary of what publicly has and hasn't been mentioned.
1 - 670m pounds are being 'saved' with the Dept for Education.
2 - 80m pounds of this is from the closure of becta and savings from other QANGOs within Education.
3 - There will be other savings within the DofE but these are now to be rolled back into Education to prop up front-line services.
4 - Some fo the ringfenced money which goes into local govt will now no longer be ringfenced to allow councils to make the best use of it, however money for schools and susre start centres stays ring-fenced. Another 'however' is that not all of the money used for schools is ring fenced anyway ... so you will have to see what happens in each council to get a firm picture about what will happen locally with education.
5 - The exact breakdown of how money will be re-used is not public yet so we have no real idea about whether any of the Becta tasks will be rolled out to other groups.
6 - This includes BSF. Certain aspects of what becta did to support PfS (IT infrastructure, embedding of technology to transform learning) is still uncertain until DofE announce what they are going to do with BSF, Academies and PCP.
Lovely article ... misses a few facts. Becta was scrapped to save on numbers, not because it did a bad job (Expelled?). The frameworks are that ... frameworks. You don't *have* to use them ... but if you do then it helps with the savings. LA were not forced to use teh frameworks. Schools are not forced to ...Quote:
Originally Posted by flyinghaggis
Last year Becta's £220,000-per-year chief executive Stephen Crowne defended it against cuts, claiming it "saves many times more than Becta costs to run".
Can this salary really be justified along with thebudget BECTA was given? did they really have that much impact? Some of the studies they did where very interesting however did we get value out of Becta's £112.5m annual budget. The money would of been better spent on the front line where it could have the most impact.
Some of that £112.5m was ringfenced for the Home Access program as mentioned by GrumbleDook early on in the thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by ict_support
Quote:
Originally Posted by GrumbleDook
Yes but again has the home access program had that much of an impact?
Which is probably why they were scrapped, there's not much point in coming out with a bunch of frameworks if they have no power to enforce them. You'll have a few places using them but it's not worth the money.Quote:
Originally Posted by GrumbleDook
Totally agree, and thats exactly the problem from the beginning. How many times have people on here asking about policies and procedures and then been informed of following guidelines outlined by BECTA? If you then cant enforce these guidelines then what is the point of having an entity who have no real power? Its a shame really, because if schools had to follow regulations then it *should* result in similar levels of infrastrcutre & support without the need to go down the outsourcing route. But again it looks like a good idea poorly executed, and now it's bye bye BECTA.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrCheese
do you think we might hear some more about that and it's direction in the autumn with the supposed academies bill ?Quote:
Originally Posted by DrCheese
what i'm confused about is these 670m of savings within the DfoE.....if they are to be 'rolled back' into funding for schools does that mean it part funds the pupil premium, or is additional monies to be found for implementing that scheme [assuming it goes ahead].
well, it didn't win labour the election after all ;0) so maybe not the desired impact. LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by ict_support
Bye bye BECTA:
http://awurl.com/o3O9PorfoQuote:
By closing the quango British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) the government hopes to save £80m.
Ben
this outlines more of the savings
Schools budget to be protected until 2011 | Teachers TV
only saved £10m this year from becta other £65m is ongoing costs even I know that doesn't add up to £80m savings .. so back to spin once again
I work for an IT publication and we've been following developments at BECTA with interest
Links that may be of interest
Resellers seek answers over BECTA framework uncertainty
BECTA hits out at imminent closure
Regards
Polish
Quote:
Originally Posted by AngryITGuy
spot on. especially the last line.Quote:
Dr John Dunford, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said: "As we face the tougher funding climate of the next few years, the government's top priority for education funding must be to get the maximum amount into the core budgets of schools and colleges. All education expenditure outside school and college budgets must continue to be rigorously reviewed against this priority".
I guess there won't be much interest in these jobs then...
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