Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Wallasey Town Hall

Contact: Sue Ashley 

Items
No. Item

481.

Schools Forum Response to the Consultation for Schools and High Needs National Funding Formula pdf icon PDF 152 KB

Minutes:

Andrew Roberts briefed Forum on work carried out to analyse the impact of the proposed Schools and High Needs National Funding Formulas, and the consultation responses proposed by the Schools and High Needs NFF Working Groups.

 

The Schools NFFs has received significant media attention due to the impact of flat cash, the Trade Union School Cuts campaign, and increasing cost pressures on schools from pay awards, inflation, pensions and National Insurance.

 

The Schools Working Group agree that there is not enough money in the overall national formula, which could lead to a reduced curriculum on offer and increase reliance on other funding streams, and make narrowing attainment gaps difficult.

 

Analysis shows Secondary schools lose money due to the change in the Primary/Secondary ratio and the transfer of funding from AWPU to Prior Attainment, which is most extreme in Grammar Schools. Similar loss in Primary Schools is offset by the change in ratio.

 

Analysis of deprivation funding changes shows that schools with the highest number of pupils receiving Free School Meals lose most funding in Primary Schools and gain least in Secondary Schools.

 

The High Needs NFF has received less media attention and is largely supported by the Working Group due to the stability it offers by using historic costs, and that no Local Authority will lose funding.

 

Issues to be resolved by DfE include reviewing the level of historic costs and proxy indicators, how future growth will be allocated in light of funding floor protection, the ability to move funds between blocks, and how the review of High Needs provision interacts with the formula.

 

The consultation closes on 22nd March 2017, with DfE aiming to publish the results by the end of the summer term, along with Local Authorities 2018-19 allocations. Working Groups now need to consider the implications for the Schools Budget in 2018-19, and how to use 18-19 to move towards the hard formula, and how to review the commissioning of High Needs Places, and how this will inform future funding.

 

Resolved

Forum approved the draft consultation responses with the following amendments to the Schools NFF response:

§  Amend question 1 response, so the final sentence reads:

“There is a real danger that this will reduce the educational support to pupils from poorer backgrounds and will work against targets to narrow attainment gaps and increase social mobility.”

§  Amend question 6 response, so it reads:

“Additional information on pupils arriving mid-term could be included in the school census in order to gauge the actual movement of pupils during the year.”

 

There were no amendments to the High Needs consultation response.