Row over per-pupil funding as city left ‘bottom of the heap’

Children in Newport are at “the bottom of the heap” for school funding and are missing out on hundreds of pounds per pupil when compared to the Welsh average, opposition councillors have said.

Welsh figures show the city languishes at the bottom of a league table for per-pupil funding, and critics have called for a review of the way schools are supported in the city.

Leading those calls, independent councillor Mark Howells said Newport’s schools are “being asked to do more every year” with £725 less per pupil than the Welsh average, and the council should “put it right”.

But the council’s leader, Cllr Dimitri Batrouni, defended his Labour administration’s investment in education, which under his watch had increased by £18.6 million – the second highest rate in Wales.

Cllr Howells said his motion was “not about party politics” and recalled then-UK Labour leader Tony Blair pledging to prioritise “education, education, education” in the 1990s before he became prime minister.

“If education is our first priority, why are Newport’s children funded the least in Wales?” he asked the council chamber.

Fellow Lliswerry independent councillor Allan Morris, seconding the motion, added Newport’s pupils were “at the bottom of a heap” and he was “not happy with that”.

Their motion called for an urgent review of Newport’s education funding allocation and a new strategy to close the per-pupil funding gap between the city and the Welsh average.

But Cllr Batrouni countered with an amendment which defended the council’s spending and contextualised budgets in the wider picture of population growth.

Newport is Wales’ fastest-growing city, and the leader said national figures showed it is the only part of Wales where the number of under-16s was on the rise this decade.

He warned that school spending could only increase if there was extra money from the government.

Failing that, Newport would have to increase council tax by as much as 11.6% and cut other services to close that per-pupil gap – measures Cllr Batrouni said he “can’t endorse”.

The Labour amendment “disappointed” the two Lliswerry councillors, as well as the Green Party’s Cllr Lauren James – who noted a group of headteachers had themselves registered concerns with the council leader about per-pupil funding.

“Our headteachers know the pressures our schools are under,” she said.

Cllr Howells added the leader’s amendment should have backed calls for more government support “instead of just trying to play political games”.

But Cllr Batrouni said Newport’s growing young population was a “mathematical reality” and a review would not change that.

He also said the new Welsh Government intended to amend the overall funding formula for councils, and reiterated his fears that cities could lose out to rural areas.

Cllr William Routley, a Conservative, urged the council chamber to “collectively see how we can get the current Welsh Government to examine what can be done”.

He likened Newport’s position in the per-pupil funding table to “being a Spurs fan and thinking we are top of the league – it’s absolutely ridiculous”.

Following various barbs between Labour and Tory councillors over who was more to blame for wider local government funding pressures, the council’s Labour group eventually won a vote to back the leader’s amendment.

Instead of a review, the amended motion described the per-pupil funding figures as “misleading and hides the stark demographic shift Newport is experiencing against fellow Welsh local authorities”.