Agenda item

Jenny introduced the report which provided an overview of the 2017/18 Dedicated Schools Grant Settlement, 2017/18 School Funding, the redefinition of ‘estimated pupils’ in respect of the pupil number adjustment arising for schools undertaking or being affected by age range changes and the impact of the Apprenticeship Levy on schools.

Jenny reported that the next phase of consultation was expected in the next few weeks but in terms of the national funding formula no information had been published by the Department for Education. 

Jenny updated the Forum on the early years’ national funding formula position and one of the areas that schools needed to be aware of was the proposal that local authority funding will be generated by a formula reflecting pupil characteristics and that 95% of the funding should be delegated to providers also based on pupil characteristics.

Jenny referred to the estimated £3M headroom within the Schools Block and said that it remains the local authority’s intention to use this to support the high needs block.  There were also changes to the education services grant from 1 September 2017 for local authorities and academies which needed to be reflected in academies’ financial planning.  The DfE had recently announced a £50M fund for local authorities to continue to monitor and commission school improvement for low performing maintained schools.  Jenny commented that at this stage it was not clear whether this was a one-off payment.  In addition the DfE had announced a £140M ‘Strategic School Improvement Fund’ for academies and maintained schools but it was not clear who decides where it is needed and how it would be used.  Jenny agreed to inform Schools’ Forum when she had more information.

In terms of the high needs block the table on page 18 sets out in more detail the financial projections for the current and two subsequent years.  Jenny commented that the high needs block for 2017/18 was provisionally set at £61.88m but the grant was not expected to be confirmed until March 2017.

The local authority was still proposing to make no changes to the school   funding formula although two areas may require some minor changes.  Firstly to IDACI to reflect the new national bandings which was discussed at the working party and the other area of concern nationally was the rateable value of property as many schools have increased.  

Jenny said that there had been clarification of the term estimate in the mechanism for adjusting pupils as a result of the age range changes for 2017/18 which had been discussed with the working group.

Jenny informed the meeting that from April 2017 schools will be affected by the national Apprenticeship Levey and outlined how the different category of school would be affected.  There was still a lack of clarity in this area and Jenny agreed to update the Schools’ Forum when she received further information.

Paul said that the £3M transfer to high needs had been debated for a number of weeks and last week the final decision was made.  The views of the Schools’ Forum were taken into account but there is a significant problem on SEND and work was required to work on new models to compound the problem.

Karen Allen urged officers and members to bear in mind the work schools do to support high needs children and the limitation of the £6K.

David Thomas referred to the £3M and suggested it would be worth identifying what the cost would be of this decision to schools.  Jenny agreed to look at this.

In addition to the changes to IDACI and the increases of rateable values which may result in minor changes to AWPU values Kath Kelly asked if this was preparing for more cuts to come.  Jenny commented that there is no proposed cut to the 2017/18 budget.  In terms of the rateable value issue Jenny commented that an exercise was being carried out on this as information received was unclear.

Referring to the chart on page 18 of the report Karen Rixon asked how the savings had been formulated.  Jenny said that the savings were being met from the Dedicated Schools Grant which does not have the same measurement as local authority budgets.  Jenny outlined particular areas of savings.

David Thomas referred to the term “baseline” and suggested that the £7M was part of the high need block for 2017/18 and £3M resulted in the schools block being short by £10m. 

Mr Ould reported that the F40 had met and it was difficult to know the current position.  The group are due to meet with the Secretary of State for Education to discuss concerns about the delayed consultation on a new national funding formula.  The area that concerns the group was the lump sum and if it reduces would affect the viability of some smaller schools.