Budget 2025: What It Means for Schools, Staff, and Pupils
The government’s 2025 Budget has left schools facing a complex mix of pressures. There are welcome measures, such as £10 million to ensure every primary school has a library by 2029, £5 million for books in secondary schools, £18 million for playgrounds, and the scrapping of the two‑child benefit cap (expected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty).
The schools budget will rise from £64.8 billion this year to £69.5 billion in 2028, a cash‑terms increase of £4.7 billion. But unions and sector leaders had hoped for additional funding to cover rising costs, including under‑funded pay rises.
At the same time, the government faces a £6 billion annual shortfall in SEND funding once the statutory override ends in 2028. The Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) has warned that if this pressure is absorbed within the Department for Education’s £69 billion core schools budget, mainstream school funding could fall by 1.7% per pupil, a reversal from the 2.4% increase previously planned.
Here is a link to the Government Budget 2025
The bottom line is, there is no extra school revenue funding.
What This Means for Schools
- Shrinking budgets: Schools risk real‑terms cuts to per‑pupil funding
- SEND absorption: Funding pressures will be absorbed centrally, but no savings have yet been identified to offset the £6bn shortfall. School leaders are pressured to ensure statutory SEND responsibilities are met while mainstream budgets are squeezed.
- Operational strain: Leadership teams must balance inclusion, wellbeing, and financial sustainability under mounting pressure.
- Staffing challenges: The pressure on teachers will continue to mount, with absences due to stress and burnout already rising, meaning high attrition and further widening of the recruitment gap.
- Recruitment shortfalls: Retention crisis as a result of the burdens caused by tightening budgets, and fewer qualified teacher entering the workforce
Sector leaders are sounding the alarm. Natalie Perera, chief executive of the Education Policy Institute, warned that further cuts “risk widening inequalities and compromising schools’ ability to deliver a world‑class education, particularly for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils.” Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of ASCL, added that a 1.7% per‑pupil cut would have a “catastrophic impact on educational provision.”
The Role of Supply Staff
Supply staff are critical to keeping classrooms open to navigate the pressures on teaching and support staff. But in this financial climate, turning to commercial supply agencies schools risk:
- Escalating agency costs – draining budgets further, while paying supply staff much lower daily rates than they deserve
- Unsupported staff facing stress and instability, leading to turnover or stress-related absences.
- Profit‑driven recruitment prioritising margins over school, staff and pupil outcomes.
🌟 How SMS Provides a Better Way
Schools Mutual Services (SMS) was established by education leaders to keep valuable resources within the sector. As a not‑for‑profit, member‑owned organisation, SMS is designed to help schools overcome exactly the kind of financial and staffing pressures highlighted.
Our model is built on ethics, transparency, and wellbeing, ensuring supply staff are supported and schools are protected from exploitative costs.
- Lowest daily rates in the market
- This ensures schools get the best value without compromising staff pay.
- Fair pay and conditions
- SMS ensures supply staff are paid fairly at national pay rates across the sector, reducing turnover and improving continuity.
- No excess profits
- Unlike private agencies, SMS keeps all spend in the education sector, protecting public funds.
- Comprehensive support
- CPD training, and bespoke health & wellness services ensure supply staff are supported and ready to thrive.
- SEND Supply professionals
- Carefully selected specialists who support SEND learners through their educational journey.
- Ethical supply staffing
- Transparent margins and a partnership approach mean schools know exactly where their money goes.
- Member ownership
- Owned by schools, for schools
The Takeaway
The 2025 Budget announcement highlights both opportunities and risks for schools. While investments in literacy, playgrounds, and poverty reduction are positive, the absence of extra revenue funding and the unresolved SEND crisis threaten to undermine mainstream budgets and widen inequalities. The OBR has made clear that SEND spending pressures have been “masked but not resolved.” SMS provides a way to safeguard staffing, protect wellbeing, and deliver continuity without compromising financial sustainability.
About SMS
With regional hubs covering the whole of the North East, East Midlands and the South East, Schools Mutual Services works with executive leaders in schools and academies across Newcastle, Durham, Gateshead, Sunderland, Northumberland, South Shields, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicester, Oxfordshire, Swindon and Berkshire.
Each hub is embedded within its local education community, working in partnership with schools, academies, multi-academy trusts and teaching alliances such as OTSA, to deliver tailored supply staffing support across primary and secondary education, whether that is day-to-day supply teaching or long-term placements.
From multi academy trusts to community primary and special schools, SMS is helping educational establishments navigate financial pressures with a smarter, more cost-effective and sustainable solution for supply teachers and supply support staff, that puts pupil outcomes first.
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If you have any supply staffing requirements or would like to discuss any information in this article further, you can contact us here ➡️CONTACT FORM
North East Hub
Portland House, Newcastle, NE1 8AL
📞 0191 933 8300
✉️ info@schoolsmutualservices.co.uk
South East Hub
Podium Sandford Gate, Littlemore, Oxford OX4 6LB
📞 01865 597 771
✉️ oxford@schoolsmutualservices.co.uk
East Midlands Hub
16 Commerce Square, Nottingham NG1 1HS
📞 0115 646 6460 | 07460 430653
✉️ nottingham@schoolsmutualservices.co.uk