School funding, pupil performance and crime

Research Summary

November 2021-ongoing

The aims of this ESRC funded research are i) to test for whether school funding programmes that are known to have increased pupil performance, also had the effect of reducing crime, both in the short and the long term, and ii) to demonstrate to other researchers, policy stakeholders and the public, the potential benefits of the linked dataset.

The research will focus on two programmes that i) were based around increased funding for schools and, ii) have been found to have raised pupil attainment. These are:

• The Excellence in Cities programme (EiC): This programme provided additional resources to urban schools starting in 1999. The main elements of the programme were i) additional provision for high achieving pupils, ii) learning mentors for pupils with learning and/or behaviour problems and iii) specialist provision outside of normal classrooms for such pupils. Evaluation evidence found that the policy increased pupil performance in mathematics and increased school attendance, particularly for schools that served the most disadvantaged pupils.
   
• The Leadership Incentive Grant (LIG): This policy was a grant of circa £0.5m per school over 3 years from 2003 that targeted schools with low GCSE performance, specifically aimed at improving the management of schools. Analysis of the effects of the policy found that the funding increased pupil pass rates at GCSE for years after the funding ended.

The project will use the records linked from the National Pupil Database to the Police National Computer. The associated privacy notice can be found here.