Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 1 May 2019.
As you said, Minister, we need to ensure that funding reaches the front line. To be fair, programmes such as twenty-first century schools have provided much-needed funding for local authorities to improve school buildings and other aspects of school life, but, of course, that doesn't help the revenue situation of existing schools, particularly when they don't always tick the right funding formula boxes. For example, as I've raised with you before, in the Monmouthshire local authority area, schools have traditionally received less funding by virtue of the fact that they have fewer children accessing free school meals. Now, I can understand the reason for having that aspect of the formula, but that does mean that Monmouthshire schools have received less over time even though there are, of course, children going to those schools who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. So, my question to you is: how are you ensuring that the funding formula does work overall and does fairly fund local authorities and schools in different parts of Wales so that our children do have the best start in life?