Education learnt its fate on Wednesday for the three years up to 2010, so leaving defence, health and environment as the only three big-spending departments still on tenterhooks as the comprehensive spending review winds towards its close.

The Department for Education and Skills is to get a real terms 2.7 per cent increase between 2008 and 2010-11. English education’s share of that is 2.5 per cent a year on average in real terms, taking spending from 2010 in England to £74.4bn. That is more than ministers feared when the spending round began. It is less than many in education would have hoped for.