Agenda item

To advise Schools Forum and seek comment on changes to the policy for funding revenue growth in mainstream schools, which will reflect new requirements from the DfE to be introduced in April 2024.

The policy for funding revenue growth in mainstream schools has been revised following DfE changes taking effect from April 2024. Trigger points within the policy will remain consistent and will continue to provide for “bulge” classes in schools or requested expansion for places. The DfE funding rates have been provided to the forum as per the School Growth policy.

Schools that have opened that are still in expansion will remain on the old policy. Any school expansion from April 2024 will be funded on the new growth policy. LA has the option to provide growth fund to schools at the beginning of year or the LA can hold the funding centrally on behalf of the school. The LA has proposed holding funding centrally as per the previous iteration of the policy and will move the funding to schools once places have been agreed. Allocation of funding to new schools opening on new housing developments will likely be brought back to the forum for discussion after February 2024.

Simon Grindrod agreed for the LA to hold funding for school expansions provided that the funding is provided to schools in September. Simon informed the panel of an instance in which funding was not provided to a school within a timely manner. Jenny Lawrence has noted that this is the first time the timeliness of growth funding payments has been raised. Martin Towers has also confirmed that his school has received growth funding without issue. Jenny has requested the details of this instance outside the forum for the issue to be investigated.

An error in the Growth Funding policy has been noted on page 19, paragraph 12 in which “can” should be amended to “cannot.

Rebecca Jones has questioned circumstances in which the growth of one oversubscribed school might detrimentally impact the financial circumstances of a second smaller school. The first school may receive additional growth funding to support expansion, resulting in spare spaces in the second school. The DfE provided £40mil to support schools with financial difficulties but Leicestershire did not trigger for this funding. Growth funding cannot be used to support growth by popularity, creating a grey area in which growth for popularity can become a school need. A change in one or two pupils can be a big difference to small schools. This is an area that the DfE are continuing to struggle with and will continue to monitor.

The LA gets no revenue funding to expand in specialised schools which is funded by high needs deficit. This is something the LA has raised with DfE.

Val Moore raised concern for schools that are popular and reject additional students, resulting in parents lodging an appeal which is upheld, causing student numbers to increase. Schools must take direction from admissions in these circumstances. This growth policy does not cover instruction to overfill from admissions, meaning that additional funding for the school would not be given until the year following the next census.

Jenny Lawrence informed the forum that growth funding can be used for falling rolls. Criteria for this funding is tight and the LA must submit an annual SCAP return to the DfE, which compares capacity in groups of schools (aggregate) with pupil forecasts. This is used by the DfE to calculate capital funding. LA are being funded for where there is fall in roll if the LA can show on a SCAP return that those places will be needed in 2-3 years; there are no schools currently in this position in Leicestershire.

On behalf of the LA, Jenny Lawrence recommended that the forum approved amendments to the School Growth Policy. There was unanimous approval for the policy on the provision that the policy is amended to include a timeframe of providing growth funding to schools which the LA must adhere to. Jenny will amend the policy and provide an amended version of the policy for the forum. (This has been appended to the minutes.)