19 January 2007
The Department for Education and Skills has defended its efficiency claims after a committee of MPs accused the department of obscuring proper debate and scrutiny.
In a report published last autumn on education expenditure, the Commons education select committee criticised the department for attributing a cash value to teacher time freed when non-teaching staff took on some of their previous tasks.
The DfES had claimed that although none of the £4.3bn in savings the department was working towards achieving by 2008 was 'cashable', in the sense that it would result in money being returned to the department, 75% of it would be 'recyclable'. It would free staff and resources to increase productivity or quality.
'Money is not being redeployed elsewhere, and it is a moot point the extent to which the gain… can be given a monetary value,' said the committee. '[This] once again draws the DfES, and the government more widely, into arguments about what the numbers mean.'
But in a response to the committee published on January 16, the DfES argued that attributing a cash value to 'recycled' savings was 'a meaningful measure of improved efficiency within schools,' even if no money was actually saved.
'To focus so narrowly on efficiency gains where money is freed up to be re-apportioned elsewhere excludes a large proportion of the techniques and approaches we are employing,' the DfES said.
The committee had also expressed concern that giving teachers less contact time with pupils and more preparation time had not resulted in better results and so it was peculiar to claim this as a 'recycled gain'.
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