The red case

George Osborne said in his 2011 Budget speech that he was fuelling the economic recovery, but he also managed to fuel a fiery debate in the Commons, The political arguments about this Budget will rage for months to come, but we want to know what you think. Take our short poll here, and add your comments in our discussion forum.

The key education-related measures announced were:

• 24 new University Technical Colleges for 11 to 19 year olds to be established by 2014, with the aim to improve technical and vocational education
• 100,000 places in a new work experience scheme during the next two years
• £100m investment in new capital funding in 2011-12 for science and innovation campuses in Cambridge, Norwich, Harwell and Daresbury.

Although rumoured, there were no details of the replacement for the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), the future role of private companies in education, or the Pupil Premium, which is due to be transferred to schools for the first time in April 2011.

Other measures affecting the education workforce were:

• Personal tax allowance will rise to £8,105 per annum in April 2012, meaning that 1.1m lower paid people will be taken out of income tax altogether. However, more than 1m families will also be losing tax credits next year
• Direct tax will be indexed by CPI from April 2012
•  'Pay lift' for public servants on less than £21,000
• State pension and public sector pension age are likely to rise, although this is yet to be confirmed. A 'single tier pension' will be introduced, but not retrospectively
• Fuel duty will be cut by 1p a litre from 6pm on 23March 2011, and a Fair Fuel Stabiliser will be introduced later. Labour argued that the Government should be reducing VAT on fuel, which increased by 3p in the pound this year
• Shared equity loan scheme for over 10,000 first time buyers of newly built properties
• Reduction in the inheritance tax rate to 36 per cent from April 2012 for estates leaving 10 per cent or more to charity
• Additional duties on high-strength beers and hand-rolling tobacco, and a reduced rate of duty on lower-strength beers.

As expected, the Chancellor also announced his intention to merge National Insurance and Income Tax, but said this will take 'a number of years' to sort out. It had been rumoured that the change would effectively increase the basic rate from 20p to 32p and top rate from 40p to 52p).

The opposition argued that the Chancellor's second budget, which had to reduce growth forecast figures, told the story of the failure of his first, butwhat do you think? Is the Budget right for education and right for its workforce?

Take part in our one question Budget poll and our discussion forum to let us know.