Becta budget slashed by £40 million

Ed Balls slashes school ICT delivery and e-learning budget

Becta "success" means slashed budget

Government ICT and e-learning delivery partner Becta is to have its £108m budget slashed by £40m due to its "success" in achieving government aims.

The announcement came as School's Minister Ed Balls was speaking to BBC radio presenter Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 on Monday about efficiency savings from both the schools and non-schools budget.

Questioned about the Becta budget cut, Balls said that Becta's example was a really good one: "If you went back to 1997 we didn't really have computers in schools, we weren't using IT properly," Balls said.

"Becta's job was to get that IT into schools, and that's what they've done. It was a huge and radical change, and I'm saying to Becta we need to carry on doing some of that, and to sell that technology round the world, but we don't need the scale, now we've succeeded," explained Balls.

Becta's baseline budget from 2009/10 was £108.875m, with £62.585m set out for programme and running costs, £6.3m of capital, and £39.9m for the Home Access programme. Home Access helps low-income families who lack computer and/or internet access to get online at home.

Becta is the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, and its role as set out on its website is "to ensure that technology is used at its best in the British education system. We work to make sure technology is used effectively – maximising the gains to our teachers and learners."