Andrew Roberts summarised his report, noting that the DfE have moved away from a national formula for all schools to a national formula with local flexibility.  Andrew highlighted some of the questions and issues from the current consultation on school funding reform and suggested responses, as follows:-

Section 1:  National Funding System

There are two options for indicative school funding allocations, a notional amount for each school or a per pupil amount for each authority.  A per pupil amount is preferred since a notional amount for each school may be misleading.

Section 2: The Schools Block - System

This section deals with how the schools block is allocated to schools.

There will be a reduction in the number of permitted formula elements, in local funding formulae (Questions 2 & 3).  This will impact the distribution of former standards fund grants (£34m) and may cause some turbulence in the formula.

Question 6 provides options for the Schools Forum to have greater decision making powers, which is supported.

Section 3: The Schools Block – Formula

The allocation of schools funding to Local Authorities will be made up of 4 blocks. The main one will be the schools block, consisting of a per pupil amount, additional funding for deprived pupils, protection for small schools and an area cost adjustment.  Question 9 asks if these are the correct factors.

Currently the Minimum Funding Guarantee is set at -1.5%.  If this remains at -1.5% the move to the new funding formula will be slow.  If it is reduced further this will cause greater uncertainty for school budgets (question 18).

Section 4: Central Services

This section questions if some of the central services should be delegated to maintained schools so that schools and academies are dealt with in the same manner.  The Schools Forum would be able to decide to hold funding centrally for maintained schools in certain areas (question 19).

Section 6: Children Requiring High levels of Support

Mainstream schools will continue to meet some of the costs of SEN.  The consultation provides four options for funding Special Schools (question 30):-

o  Place led funding (as most are presently).

o  Pupil led funding

o  Place led funding reduced for surplus places

o  Base funding of £10k per place with extra pupil led funding

Section 7: Early Years

As the new funding formula has only been in place since April the local formula should be  reviewed before further changes are considered. 

Section 8:  Pupil Premium

The Pupil Premium is based on the number of free school meals recorded at January Census.  This measure will be broadened to those children who have received free school meals in the last three years (Ever 3) or the last 6 years (Ever 6).  The broader the measure, the broader the distribution of resources across authorities.  Ever 6 is also likely to benefit secondary schools over primary schools.

Section 9: Timing for Implementation

The new funding formula will be implemented in 2013-14 or 2015-16.

The Consultation finishes on 11^th October 2011.  A response will be submitted to the DfE on behalf of the School’s Forum.

Resolved:

That the Forum notes the report