Faith schools contribute millions of pounds less towards own costs, figures suggest

The funding that faith schools contribute towards opening and maintaining their own buildings has fallen sharply over the past decade, The Independent can reveal. 

Voluntary aided (VA) faith schools, which can admit all their pupils on religious grounds, now provide millions of pounds less to their own capital costs, figures obtained via a freedom of information (FoI) request suggest. 

In the last financial year, faith schools contributed £18m towards capital spending projects from central government, compared to more than £67m in the 2009-10 financial year, the government data shows. 

Campaign group the Accord Coalition, who shared the figures with The Independent, say the smaller contribution from the faith school sector removes the justification for them being able to select all pupils by religion. 

It comes after the government announced that it would allow faith groups to open new VA faith schools, which are set up with council help, if they paid 10 per cent of the capital costs of buildings themselves. 

The Roman Catholic church intends to open a new VA school in Peterborough via this route after the government gave it approval – and two more bids for faith schools in London are in the pipeline.

An analysis of the Department for Education figures shows £643,240,000 of capital funding was given to VA faith schools in 2009-10 and these schools contributed £67,290,000 (10 per cent) towards their costs. 

And in 2018-19, £236,546,914 of capital funding was given to VA faith schools and these schools contributed £18,089,579 (7 per cent) towards their costs, the analysis from the campaigners shows. 

The majority of VA schools are primary schools run by the Church of England and the Catholic Church.

Revd Stephen Terry, chair of the Accord Coalition, which campaigns for inclusive education, said: “Discrimination in any walk of life is unacceptable, especially in the field of education. 

“It is therefore disgraceful that, with no public debate, discriminatory faith schools have seen a significant increase in their public subsidy over the last decade.”

The government expects the governing bodies of VA schools, of which the majority are religiously selective schools, to pay at least 10 per cent of the capital costs of their buildings.

But in exceptional circumstances, the Department for Education (DfE) can fund 100 per cent of the costs.

Meanwhile, other types of faith schools like academies, state schools run independently of local authorities, have all their costs met by the taxpayer – and the number of faith academies are rising. 

Revd Terry added: “The arguments previously made to justify faith schools both in operating religiously discriminatory pupil admission policies and in not teaching about other beliefs, on the grounds that they and their providers help support their running costs, are now almost completely redundant.”

Ruth Wareham, education campaigns manager at Humanists UK, said: “The fact that religious schools using discriminatory faith-based admissions policies receive any funds from the public purse is deeply unsatisfactory, but the fact that many such schools are now almost entirely state subsidised is outrageous.”

She added: “Religious selection is bad for children, bad for families, and bad for society. To pay for it with ever-increasing amounts of public money merely adds insult to injury.”

However, the DfE indicated that the decline over the past decade was due to an overall fall in the number of VA faith schools in the country as a large number have converted to academies.

They added that some VA schools have also been given cash from the Priority School Building Programme – where the government provides 100 per cent of funding to replace buildings in disrepair.

A spokesperson for the Catholic Education Service said: “Capital expenditure fluctuates every year and there are many external factors that can impact this. 

“However, through the gifting of its own land and school buildings to the state, the Catholic Church consistently saves the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds every year.”

Nigel Genders, chief education officer at the Church of England, argued it was “misleading” to use the figures to “support an ideologically driven prejudice against Church schools” and he added a shift to academy status and the development of central funded building programmes were behind the fall. 

He added: “The fact is that a third of all state funded schools operate on land and in buildings owned by the churches and are provided free of charge and rent free. This partnership between Church and State represents exceptionally good value for the taxpayer.”