Every Child A Chance

NEWS RELEASE

Monday January 5th 2009

INNUMERATE SCHOOLCHILDREN COST THE TAXPAYER UP TO £2.4 BN A YEAR

Businesses across the country are to be encouraged to contribute up to £12,000 a year each, over three years, to help children in schools in their community overcome numeracy problems. It is part of a new major £6m campaign by the Every Child a Chance Trust, an educational charity, which was set up in 2007 to help socially disadvantaged children.

Barclays has already signed on to be the first national sponsor, pledging £1.2m. This will provide a co-ordinating structure to encourage local business support for at least 150 schools to help over 6,000 children aged seven who have the greatest difficulties with maths. It will also establish sponsorship relationships between 20 Barclays branches in England and their local primary schools.

The new initiative will help Government measures to stem the soaring long term costs to the nation of 33,000 children (6% of 11 year olds) leaving primary schools each year with very poor numeracy skills, which in turn leads to an estimated 7 million innumerate adults with mathematical skills at or below those of a nine-year-old.

It follows the publication today of a report by KPMG estimating for the first time that the long term costs of so many children leaving our schools innumerate could be as high as £44,000 per individual up to the age of 37.  This makes a total bill to the nation’s taxpayers of £2.4 BN every year.

The costs are itemised in the accompanying table at the end of this release. But the largest cost – nearly £1.9BN is caused by so many innumerates being unemployed. This is followed by a £235m extra annual bill to our schools to pay for special needs support and the costs of exclusions and truancy. Criminal costs account for £165m as so many people who can’t manage basic maths drift into crime. Substance abuse and teenage pregnancy costs come to £98.9m and there are health costs caused by treating depression of £17.5m.

On the other hand the report’s authors have also estimated that the cost of the government-backed Every Child Counts programme, launched in 2007, work out at around £2,600 per pupil. Every Child Counts is an early intervention programme in which children aged seven who have the greatest difficulties with numbers are given half an hour individual tuition every day by specially trained teachers over around 12 weeks. 

Initial research to be published next month suggests that such early intervention can lift around eight out of ten of the children who receive it out of numeracy failure. Using this evidence the report’s authors estimate that every £1 spent on the Every Child Counts programme will save between £12 and £19 later on.

That is why, as part of the new campaign, local businesses will be encouraged to support an extension of the programme for an extra 12 children and help for each child including a special rucksack with a maths toolkit for every child to take home. This toolkit will hold CDs of number songs and rhymes, maths computer games, dice, counters, bead strings, place value cards and games for the children to play at home with their parents – old-fashioned games like dominoes, Jacks and Snakes and Ladders. Local businesses will also be encouraged to supply volunteers to become Number Partners to help children with their sums.

Commenting on the report Sir Peter Williams, Chancellor of the University of Leicester and author of last year’s independent report into the teaching of mathematics in the early years and primary schools, notes: “In our review last year we made clear to government the importance of getting maths teaching right in the primary school, and the impact on individuals and society if we don’t.  It may be costly to provide early intervention to tackle children’s numeracy difficulties, but as this new report from the Every Child a Chance Trust makes very clear, such investment will pay for itself many times over in the future.”

John Griffith-Jones, Chairman of KPMG and Chairman of the Every Child a Chance Trust, said: “We should be deeply concerned about the high costs of innumeracy described in the report.  As a business whose people are highly numerate, it seems only right that we should help to do something about the 30,000 children who leave primary schools each year barely able to do the simplest calculations. The charity has therefore devised this nationwide plan, implemented locally, and we very much hope that the business community will respond. As the report says: ‘Every pound put forward now will save the nation at least £12 later on in reduced crime and unemployment and in other savings.’”

Mike Amato, Head of Distribution and Product at Barclays said: "We are very conscious that every child needs basic numeracy skills for survival.  That is why Barclays have committed to this national campaign in support of Every Child Counts.  In the current complex financial climate, it makes economic sense to intervene early with youngsters to help them develop core numeracy skills which will help them manage their finances one day successfully, which in turn helps to drastically reduce the costs to society as detailed in this report.”

-ends-
Notes to editors:
Further information from Mark Hamilton, KPMG Press Office, on 0207 694 2687 or from Jean Gross, Director Every Child a Chance Trust on 07748 775902

LONG TERM COSTS OF INNUMERACY

	Cost category	Total lifetime costs
Education costs	Special needs support - numeracy (primary)	£51.5M
	Special needs support - numeracy and behaviour (secondary )	£90.5M
	Cost of maintaining a Statement of special educational needs	£83.4M
	Educational psychologist time	£4.1M
	Permanent exclusions	£0.9M
	Truancy	£2.8M
	Adult numeracy classes	£2.0M
	Education total	£235.2
Employment costs	Lost tax and NI revenues	£774.6M
	Unemployment benefits	£392.9M
	Lost indirect taxes	£705.2M
	Employment total	£1,872.7
Social costs associated with being NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) at age 16-18	Substance abuse and teenage pregnancy	£98.9M
	Social costs total	£98.9M
Health costs	Depression	£17.5M
	Health total	£17.5M
Costs of crime	Costs of involvement with criminal justice system	£164.8M
	Crime total	£164.8M
	TOTAL	£2,389.1M

Source: KPMG

Long term costs of numeracy report
January 2009 (PDF Document 1.46 MB)