Civil servants responsible for £370m school funding blunder 'will be made redundant in the private sector'

Susan Acland-Hood, permanent secretary at the Department of Education, discovered there had been a “mistake”; were made in relation to “processing the forecast of the number of pupils”;

Civil servants responsible for a £370 million school funding blunder would have been sacked if they worked in the private sector, senior Tories have said.

Last week the Department of Education admitted that this was the case. made an error in financial calculations that will mean schools in England will receive a 1.9 per cent per pupil funding increase in 2024-25, rather than the 2.7 per cent originally promised.

Schools have been given the indication of the funding they will receive is based on a national formula that determines how much each will receive from the £59.6 billion schools budget.

But on Friday Susan Acland-Hood, the DfE's permanent secretary, said an «error» in the «handling of projected pupil numbers» resulted in the figure being 0.62 per cent higher than the money actually allocated, equivalent to around £370 million. .

“Someone must be held accountable.”

The admission caused consternation among conservatives. Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, told The Telegraph there was a need for “accountability.”

“Obviously this is a very serious matter,” he said. “Telling schools what their budget will be is one of the DfE's routine tasks.

“The question should always be raised: are these people still working from home? Does this lead to careless thinking and careless behavior?

“Someone should be held accountable for a mistake of several hundred million pounds, and that person should be held accountable for it.”

How Department accountant Sir Jacob said Ms Acland-Hood had to «explain how responsibility was accepted».

«The civil service has screwed up»

Another Conservative party source said the incident was a «failure of public service». “Whoever signed this should resign,” they said.

“Frankly, in any other walk of life, if you made a £300 million mistake, you would already have would be your P45.”

In a letter sent to the House of Commons education select committee, Ms Acland-Hood said: “I apologize for this error.”

“The Secretary of State [Gillian Keegan] asked me: conduct a formal review of the quality assurance process associated with the calculation of the national funding formula, with independent verification. Improvements have already been identified to avoid similar errors being repeated in the future.

“However, we recognize that correcting this error will be difficult for local authorities and frustrating for some school leaders, so the Department has sought to correct it as quickly as possible mistake.”

The Telegraph understands that Ms Acland-Hood has formally apologized to Ms Keegan for the blunder.

The DfE has been contacted about the error. comment.