Ed Balls at ICC conference: Schools must be more efficient in tough climate

Nov 28 2009 by Gregg Evans, Birmingham Mail

EDUCATION Secretary Ed Balls called on schools and local authorities to be more efficient in order to maintain future frontline services.

Mr Balls admitted that schools would not be seeing the kind of bigger budgets of previous years because of the current economic climate, and challenged the sector to make the best use of their public resources.

He was speaking at the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) national conference at the ICC in Birmingham.

“We are going into a tougher environment so we will need to be more efficient,” he said. “I think if we can get this right we can save the future of our country.

“If we prepare now we can protect our frontline priorities such as the additional 41,000 teachers and 120,000 teaching assistants that are working in schools and our one-to-one tuition and school-building programme.”

He has announced that he would invest £12m in new ‘smart meters’ to give schools real-time digital information about their electricity use.

The scheme will be rolled out in January and will help children learn about climate change, carbon reduction as well as helping with financial management.