MP Attacks injustice of school funding in parliament

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 22nd Sep 2003

Last week local MP Vincent Cable raised in parliament, with schools Minister David Miliband, what he calls the 'running sore' of school funding under which residents in neighbouring boroughs are free to use local schools, following the so called Greenwich Judgement, but the borough is only financed by the government on the basis that all the school population comes from the borough.

Vincent Cable, who has raised the problem on several occasions in parliament, said that " the anomaly creates two problems. First, some local schools on the borough boundary

like Hampton Community College have a very large out-of-borough intake but the schools get no special allowance for the extra needs of these pupils."

Second, at very popular schools like Waldegrave, residents find

themselves competing with out-of-borough applicants whose parents do not pay high local council tax".

"This government, like the last, has shown no inclination to change the status quo. But, at last, the schools minister has acknowledged to me that there is a real problem. In practice, I calculated that the borough is short-changed by around £1 million because of these arrangements and we must continue to press for reform".