Cambridgeshire schools are to get an extra £23.2 million in government funding – £2.7 million more than originally expected.

I blogged back in March about the campaign which has involved the Schools Forum and the Cambridge News. In January Cambridge Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert led a debate in Parliament on the issue and explained how the county’s children are paying for poor funding decisions made over the last 30 years. Julian has fighting for fairer funding for the county’s children for more than a decade.

This is great news for children and teachers in our schools with an extra by £311 per pupil per year. And because the increase has been brought about through a change in the government’s funding formula it is not a one off payment, but will delivery a fairer deal year on year.

The fight for fairer funding needs to continue but this is a big step forward. For over thirty years Cambridgeshire schools have been short-changed with our pupils receiving £600 below the English average. Until now, no government has done anything about it. With this new commitment more than half the gap between our schools and those across the country has been closed.