Andrew Roberts summarised the consultation document included in the papers.  The consultation has been sent out to all schools for a response by the end of term.  A working party of the Schools’ Forum was formed to respond to the national DfE consultation and also to consider local changes.  The papers are included in this meeting are for awareness, the Forum is not being asked at this point to make any decisions.

The timescales for the consultation are tight because local authorities are required to submit their new formulae to the DfE by the end of October.

The main areas of change are:

·  a simplified formula

·  a single lump sum

·  the removal of a separate grants element (grants were mainstreamed a couple of years ago)

·  delegation of central budgets

The DfE are insisting that these changes are made.  The MFG is seen as the mechanism to provide stability.

This is an evolving area of work and the DfE are still making changes.  The consultation papers have been released this term because Wirral want to give schools enough time to consider the changes.  Further changes by the DfE at the end of last week include:

·  6 bands for IDACI instead of the original 5

·  Increasing the upper limit for the lump sum to £200,000

·  Changes to the MFG calculation

New information will be sent out to schools.

In response to questions raised by members, Andrew Roberts confirmed that:

·  he had met with headteachers and held question and answer sessions.

·  a new consultation question would be circulated to schools about making the formula affordable and whether schools would prefer a capping or scaling approach.

·  the situation for 2015 is not yet clear.  There will be a new national formula for local authorities, but the DfE may choose to either keep the local formulae or calculate individual budgets for schools.  The decisions will not be taken in the near future and therefore cannot inform decisions on the current consultation.

·  the full consultation papers and appendices are available to download from Wescom

Paul Ashcroft outlined the consultation on the changes to the SEN funding system.  The DfE intend to change the high needs funding system entirely.  Statemented children will be funded in the same way regardless of where they attend.  The new system must be in place by 2014, with transitional arrangements for 2013 only.  The new system will be £10,000 per place plus a local top-up per pupil.  The ‘plus’ element will be locally determined and schools will be consulted on this – it is likely to be complicated.

Andre Baird acknowledged that the new system had its merits in providing equality of funding, but also raised a number of concerns:

·  Special Schools cannot de-delegate budgets such as Maternity costs.  Although they can pool voluntarily amongst special schools, this is not as economical as pooling across all schools

·  Clare Mount received specialist school funding which will not be protected for as long as in mainstream schools.  This is not fair or consistent.  Andrew Roberts confirmed that the money would stay in the high needs sector, and that he would need to look at how this was distributed.

·  The monthly adjustments to top up funding for places gives schools no security in budgets or planning

·  Special schools are not in control of their own admissions, and therefore cannot influence the amount of funding they received under a place plus system

Elaine Cogan thanked Andrew Roberts and his team for trying to maintain stability in budgets, particularly at a time of cuts in post-16 funding.