A good education is one of the most important building blocks a child can receive. However, all too often we hear about the huge pressures being faced by schools in trying to manage their budgets where the funding they receive is not sufficient. This is clearly having a negative effect on the provision of education, including schools having to make staff cuts in order to balance their budgets.

Issues had also been raised about the level of transparency and variation in the distribution of funding for schools and there has been debate over the balance between unhypothecated funding for local government and the more targeted funding aimed specifically at Welsh Government education priorities. More recently, we have heard widespread concern that insufficient school budgets would inhibit the delivery of the Welsh Government’s education reform agenda.

There is an immense and unprecedented level of reform going on in education. We have the radical new curriculum for Wales, a major new additional learning needs Act, the delivery of the whole-school approach to mental health and wide-ranging reforms to professional learning underpinning them all. We cannot expect these major reforms to succeed without adequate funding.

In light of this, the committee agreed to undertake the inquiry to look specifically at both the sufficiency of school funding in Wales and the way in which school budgets are determined and allocated. In taking the inquiry forward, we took evidence from a wide range of stakeholders across the sector. We also undertook detailed case studies with three schools, in which we met with people at all levels—pupils and parents, teachers and school leaders, local authorities and school governors. What we heard in all three schools was very hard-hitting, and, on occasions, alarming. Seeing directly the effect of budget constraints on those on the front line highlighted just how urgently this situation needs to be addressed. I would like to thank all those who took the time to meet with us during the case studies, and for their honest views on the problems being faced.

In total the Committee made 21 recommendations, covering a wide range of issues. In the time available today, I can't cover all our recommendations. I will, however, outline some of the main concerns raised. We are pleased that the Minister for Education has accepted all of the recommendations in our report and the broad welcome she has given to the committee’s work in this key area. It is concerning, though, that the Minister’s response lacks clear detail on how a number of the recommendations will be taken forward. And I hope that the Minister will be able to expand on her response during the debate today on a number of those key recommendations.

In outlining the findings of the inquiry, I’d like to start with the most worrying conclusion we reached as a committee, and where the evidence received was overwhelming. Put quite simply, there is not enough money going into the education system in Wales and not enough finding its way to schools. We saw this first-hand during our school visits. As we've outlined in the report, this is a simple conclusion that, unfortunately, does not have a simple solution. The system for funding schools is hugely complex, multilayered and dependent on many factors, not least of course the amount of money available to the Welsh Government from Westminster. It must also be recognised that responsibility for providing adequate funding for our schools cuts across ministerial portfolios. Given the complexity of the funding formulas, Ministers across Welsh Government must work together to ensure that schools receive the funding they need.

Additional funding for education is essential—and I’ll return to this point shortly—but while it would have been easy to simply recommend additional funding, we believe that increasing the level of funding alone is not the solution. The funding must also be used effectively and in the right places. To fully understand the problems being faced by our schools, it is crucial that we first know the extent of the funding gap facing the education system in Wales, particularly at this time of substantial reform. We need to understand how much it costs to run a school and to educate a child, as a basic minimum, before all necessary factors such as deprivation and sparsity are taken into account, as well as the huge reform agenda.

Recommendation 1 in our report is therefore clear in its call for the Welsh Government to undertake an urgent review to establish this. The response from the Minister has been very positive, confirming that work has already started between Welsh Government and local government to consider the scope of the review. I look forward to receiving an update on action in due course from the Minister. Can I say, though, that whatever the outcome of that inquiry, it cannot be put in the ‘too difficult’ box, as has happened with previous reviews on school funding, such as the Bramley review in 2007 and the years that followed?

Returning to the issue of additional funding, I’m sure that Members are aware that recent funding announcements for education in England have led to a consequential of nearly £200 million for Wales. In view of the fact that the Welsh Government has accepted all the recommendations of the committee’s report, I would hope that most, if not all of this, will be earmarked for education in Wales.

As our report sets out, the problems being faced are not just about the level of funding for schools but also about the way it makes its way to the school front line and how it is used. This clearly depends on a number of factors, including budget prioritisation at a Welsh Government level, how resources for local government are shared out between authorities, whether local authorities prioritise schools within their own budget-setting process, the extent to which they delegate funding to schools themselves, and how they distribute that funding between schools.

Given the complexity of the system, we were concerned to learn that the Welsh Government does not monitor the level of priority that local authorities give to schools within their distribution of funding. Welsh Government has been very clear throughout the inquiry that local authorities are responsible for allocating resources to education, and are democratically accountable for this. While we accept this position, we believe that given Welsh Government's overall responsibility for education, they must be able to satisfy themselves that local authorities are sufficiently prioritising education.

Recommendation 5 of the report, therefore, calls on the Welsh Government monitor this spend more closely, to assure itself that sufficient funding is being provided to enable schools to effectively deliver what is required of them: high-quality education, and also to improve and deliver on the reform agenda. While the Minister has accepted this recommendation, the detail in her response does not provide any indication of how the Welsh Government will undertake the greater monitoring role we called for. We will therefore be seeking further clarification from the Minister on this issue.

In the evidence we received, there was confusion about the purpose of indictor-based assessments within the local government settlement. The clear position of the Welsh Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Education in Wales was that IBAs have limited influence on how much is spent on education. However, the headteachers' unions argued that there's little point establishing IBAs if local authorities do not take account of them. While we accept that funding for local government is unhypothecated, we believe the Welsh Government must provide greater clarity on the purpose of IBAs. While they are not a prescription of how much a local authority must spend, are they not at least the Welsh Government’s estimate of how much a local authority should need to spend in order to maintain a standard level of service? That is not entirely clear from the Welsh Government’s response to recommendation 6.

Llywydd, there are many more important issues raised during the inquiry that I would like to discuss but cannot cover today. I would like to conclude by saying that I truly believe the lack of adequate funding for our schools is one of the biggest problems facing our public services. To reiterate, I very much welcome the Minister’s agreement to commission a review to identify how much money the schools system in Wales needs and look forward to further information on that.

Investment in education is the most important preventative investment that any Government can make. The time has now come for us all to work together, across parties, across both Welsh Government and local government, to ensure that our schools have the funding they need to provide the high-quality education that all our children and young people deserve. Diolch yn fawr.