David Mowat, MP for Warrington South last week called on the Government to change its system of determining the funding the funding for schools. Out of the 157 Local Education Authorities in the England, Warrington is 130th in terms of per pupil funding.
Highlighting recent conversations he had had at Broomfields Junior School in Appleton, Mr Mowat called on the Government to make an early start to tackling these discrepancies which have been in existence for nearly 20 years.
David Mowat said:
"Warrington is not a wealthy place. It has wards that are among the most deprived in the country. I was shocked to see recently that there is a 50% discrepancy between the funding level of schools in Warrington and those in Westminster. Is Westminster that much worse off than Warrington? Are the deprivation indices that much more difficult? I do not think so.
"A lot of words have been written about how difficult it all is, but none of the analyses attempt to justify the status quo. I have seen no serious attempt to say that where we are now is the right place. I'm not asking for a national funding formula to be put in place and implemented immediately. I recognise that it could take 10, 15 or 20 years to fix this in its entirety, but that is all the more reason at least to make a start."