Teachers’ leader gives Balls 0 out of 10 for ‘savings’ plans

There’s a bit more detail on the schools budget “savings” – don’t you dare call them cuts! – Ed Balls shared with The Sunday Times.

About £330m could be saved by “federating” schools and economising on senior positions – including head teachers.

Mr Balls’ team say they would not remove a head teacher from any secondary school but they would remove some primary heads as well as deputies, assistant heads, heads of subject in primary and secondary.

He also thinks he could save £800m in smarter procurement, £100m cutting curriculum advisers, over 300 of them, £600m in clawing back “excessive” surpluses, where schools seem to have a lot in the bank for no particular reason or project.

Mr Balls made a point of saying in his BBC 1 interview today that he had consulted the unions on this.

Christine Blower of the NUT is down here in Bournemouth and tells me heads of department and heads etc all count as teachers and frontline staff in her book, exactly what the government said it would safeguard. She said she’d give the plans “0 out of 10”.

And why does Ed Balls say these are not “cuts”? He is still holding out for real-terms growth in his budget, which of course would pile even more pressure on other spending departments.

– Related: At the TUC Brown finally speaks of cuts
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