Meeting documents

Apologies for absence were received from Mrs K Douglas, Mrs A Coneron, Mr A Gillespie and Ms A Sayani.

There were no declarations of interest.

To confirm the minutes of the meetings held on 8 January and 19 January 2016.

The minutes of the Schools Forum Funding Group meeting held on the 11 January 2016 are attached for information.

The minutes of meeting held on 8 January 2016 and 19 January 2016 were agreed subsequent to the following minor amendments.

Minutes of the 8 January

Page 11 bullet point 12

The proposal is being forced disproportionally on disadvantaged children is to be amended to ‘the proposal could potentially have a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged children’.

Page 13 – bullet point 2

Descent to be amended to dissent

Minutes of the 19 January

The following bullet point is to be added:

Some members of the Forum felt that a vote could not be taken on the proposed models without the relevant data.

Page 23

Members voted on whether a vote on the proposed models should take place:

In Favour: 17

Against: 5

Abstain: 0

The following action is to be added to the minutes:

Details of the funding allocation to schools would be circulated to Members.

ACTION: Finance Officer

Academy representative

The election of an Academy representative would be discussed at BASH. ACTION: Mr Rowe / Mr Rosen

DBS Charges Review

Why are academies charged more for Business Services Plus? Ms M Edmonds, Commercial Manager, Business Services Plus explained that from an HR point of view academies required indemnity insurance as they had their own identity. She explained that there was no differential in the price for services such as broadband and ICT.

Why are small schools charged less – there was some feeling that small schools are adequately taken care of through the schools funding formula and therefore should not be subject to special treatment? It was felt that this was an issue that could be addressed for 2017-18.  Ms Edmonds explained that the DBS/Safeguarding package was changed last year following feedback from small schools. Ms Edmonds reported that:

·         No feedback had been received from small schools in terms of shared services packages for bursars and headteachers.

·         Issues raised about the Property Services review were being addressed.

·         The help desk facility had come back in-house, which would result in greater visibility in areas of the service such as accurate and timely billing.

Admissions Appeals

Would consultation take place with all schools or just voluntary controlled schools? Mrs E Wilding advised that consultation would take place with all schools and a review of the process would be required in light of the National Funding Formula.

Concern was expressed that money is allocated to schools for bulge classes when there is significant capacity in secondary schools where expansion has been funded. ACTION: Mrs Wilding/Member Services Officer to invite School Place Planning team to provide an update at a future meeting.

There are places available in schools in local areas and some schools are fuller as a result of housing build. ACTION: Mrs Wilding to seek a response from Mrs Campbell Balcombe.

Ms G Shurrock, Head of SEND and Ms P Richardson, Consultant leading on the SEND Review, were welcomed to the meeting.

Ms Shurrock explained that the High Needs funding consultation, held between 7 March 2016 and 17 April 2016, was a two stage process: part 1 – High Level Principles; part 2 - detailed proposals and the impact on local authorities.

Members were informed that the current system for distributing funding to schools was felt to be out of date, unfair and based historically on local spending and that the review proposed a move of funding from central to local government, together with the use of proxy indicators of need.

Members were advised that apart from 2 Greater London Authorities, the percentage of pupils with a Statement of SEN or Education Care Plan was never less than 1% and that this figure was 3.28% in Bucks compared to the national average of 2.8%.

Members were informed that key points from the report included:

·         Ofsted found that, with appropriate support, pupils with severe and complex needs were able to make outstanding progress in both mainstream and special schools.

·         Currently maintained special schools, special academies and non-maintained special schools all receive funding of £10,000 per place from either the local authority (in the case of maintained schools) or the EFA.

·         Any provision for special SEN units in independent schools (including provision in independent special schools) was currently funded wholly by local authorities. From 2017-18 the proposal was for the £10,000 place funding to come straight from the EFA.

·         A proposed change to the way additionally resourced provisions (ARPs) were currently funded (£10,000 per place), in terms of special SEN units receiving the per pupil amounts that would be due to the school, by including the pupils in the units within the school’s pupil count, plus place funding of £6,000.

·         Improvements to the funding arrangements and guidance to help local authorities, early years providers, mainstream schools, colleges and other institutions with students aged 16-25 who had SEN and disabilities

·         The DfE’s agreement with ISOS that that the current concept of a notional SEN budget should be removed as local authorities varied in the way they

·         calculated their schools’ notional SEN budget ; however there were no details of how this would take place. Work needed to take place with SENDCOs and School Business Managers to consider the possible outcomes of the removal of notional SEN and the effect on Early Years funding.

·         Subject to the more detailed modelling, possible allocation of the High Needs Block to local authorities on the basis of a formula which might include factors related to deprivation, prior attainment, disability and general children’s health rather than currently being allocated based on historic spend. Members were advised that there would also be an allocation of approximately £4,000 based on the current number of pupils in special schools in Buckinghamshire.

·         The use of two attainment indicators, at the end of key stage 2 and 4 (both primary and secondary)

·         The proposal  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Mr M Moore explained that it had been difficult to write the Terms of Reference for the Contingency Panel which would cover all eventualities. The meeting was told that one of the key issues was the definition of the term ‘financial difficulty’ as, for example, a school could be holding a surplus for a specific purpose but could be still facing a deficit.

Members were reminded that in order to qualify for a payment from the Contingency Panel, a school must prove that it was in ‘financial difficulty’ and that to improve consistency in decision making at the Panel, it would be useful to have an agreed definition of ‘financial difficulty’.

Mr Moore referred Members to the Contingency Clarification report and the proposed definition of ‘financial difficulties’ as follows:

Financial difficulties shall be recognised when either:

a)  The latest forecast of the year end results show a deficit or

b)  As a result of the additional costs (being the subject of the Contingency application), the in-year deficit of the school exceeds 2% of the school’s budget share.     

Members were also advised that the Terms of Reference for the Contingency Panel had been redrafted to cover the term ‘free’ as well as a minor change in the Terms of Reference:

Principles and criteria

iii) Support for additional pupil numbers

b) "that insufficient free reserves and balances are able to cover these costs"

Members of Schools Forum were asked for guidance on dealing with applications for additional school numbers (a school having more children in September than anticipated) which was therefore not funded from October to March. Mr Moore explained that traditionally the Contingency Panel would look at whether the increase in pupil numbers presented financial difficulty for the school and any resulting additional costs, following which the school would be asked to justify the expenditure. Mr Moore said if the Panel were satisfied that the request was reasonable, the usual approach adopted in most cases would be to grant payment of up to seven twelfths of AWPU.

Members were asked for clarification of the interpretation of the Terms of Reference:

Interpretation A

Grant 7/12 of the AWPU for the additional pupils provided that the school could justify support by demonstrating that it had incurred significant additional teaching and/or other costs. The advantage being this is a very straight forward approach in responding to an application without the need to try and match the additional costs with the "lost" AWPU

The basis of this approach being that the school would have received such monies if it were not for the Government Financial Regulations, which stipulate that the funding per pupil is based on the previous October census.

Furthermore, as well as not receiving AWPU for the additional pupils, the school also suffers additional underfunding as it does not receive funds for deprivation, prior attainment etc

Interpretation B

Grant the amount that the school can justify it has incurred due to the increase in pupils. Some schools may receive several additional pupils across  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Cabinet Member for Education and Skills advised that a summary of the f40’s proposal in response to the National Funding Formula for Schools had been circulated to Members of Schools Forum which included the following key points.

·         The f40 group proposes a new model for distributing education funding in England to create a fair and rational model of funding for schools.  The f40 model retained the existing Dedicated Schools Grant structure with three blocks: Schools, High Needs and Early Years.

·         The favoured proposal was for a core formula to produce a local authority level total, with each local authority then having discretion on local allocation. This option would ensure consistency offer local flexibility and provide sharp local accountability.

·         The model used a needs-based formula for each block, recognising the costs of educating children in different parts of the country and taking into account pupil characteristics such as deprivation and other additional needs. 

The Cabinet Member explained that there would always be circumstances that made one school different from another and the report highlighted the need for some differential funding but generally that opportunities for a child, wherever they were in the country, should be able to be met by similar levels of resources.

Members were informed that the basic premise of the proposal by the f40 group was:

·      Any child across the country should receive the same amount of funding wherever they were.

·      The model allocated a flat rate of funding per pupil across all regions and included Pupil Premium. The Schools Block should then be distributed between local authorities on six formula factors:

o   Basic entitlement (formerly age weighted pupil unit)

o   Deprivation (based on Ever 6 FSM data only)

o   Low prior attainment

o   English as an Additional Language (EAL)

o   Lump sum

o   Sparsity

·      In the interests of transparency, local authorities should use common criteria and data for deprivation, low prior attainment and EAL.

·      The recommendation needed to be a formula-based approach with the main factor being pupil numbers.

·      f40 had concerns that the current national Early Years funding envelope was insufficient to deliver the existing entitlement to two, three and four year olds whilst recognising the continuing increase in numbers and costs to providers. The Government commitment to extend the free entitlement to 30 hours for working parents added additional financial pressure.

·      The national pot for the Schools Block should be increased to take account of exceptional pupil growth i.e. exceptional pupil growth as defined by the DfE.

·      The recommendation that the allocations for EAL, deprivation and low prior attainment are ‘smoothed’ by averaging data over three years.

·      The formula should apply to all maintained mainstream schools and academies in exactly the same way and on the same funding year. The preference of the f40 group was for the academic year.

The Cabinet Member said that overall , Buckinghamshire would gain as part of Schools Block but there was a risk within High Needs funding and that the additional responsibility on the local authority  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Mr John Huskinson took Members through a presentation on National Fairer Funding Consultation highlighting the following key points.

·           Every school was free to respond to the consultation and that the local authority would be submitting a response.

·           The consultation would run from 7 March 2016 to 17 April 2016 and was a two stage process; stage one high level principles (being presented today) and stage two- rates, which was expected to be published in June /July.

Members expressed the following views in response to the questions asked in the consultation.

Question 1 – do you agree with our proposed principles for the funding system? AGREED with the exception of bullet point 4 – ‘a funding system that gets funding straight to schools’.  Reservation was expressed about Schools Forum having the ability to question decisions at local level as well as having democratic accountability.

Question 2 – do you agree with our proposal to move to a school-level national funding formula in 2019-20, removing the requirement for local authorities to set a local formula? Members did not agree with this proposal.

Question 3 - do you agree that the basic amount of funding for each pupil should be different at primary, key stage 3 and key stage 4? AGREED

Question 4

a) Do you agree that we should include a deprivation factor?

b) Which measures for the deprivation factor do you support?

•         Pupil-level only (current FSM and Ever6 FSM)

•         Area-level only (IDACI)

•         Pupil- and area-level

AGREED; however there were mixed views on the option of pupil and area level.

Question 5 - do you agree we should include a low prior attainment factor? AGREED

Question 6

a) Do you agree that we should include a factor for English as an additional language?

b) Do you agree that we should use the EAL3 indicator (pupils registered at any point during the previous 3 years as having English as an additional language)? AGREED

Question 7 - do you agree that we should include a lump sum factor? AGREED

Question 8 - do you agree that we should include a sparsity factor? AGREED

Question 9 - do you agree that we should include a business rates factor? AGREED.       

Question 10 - do you agree that we should include a split sites factor? AGREED

Question 11 - Do you agree that we should include a private finance initiative factor?  Members agreed that a private finance initiative factor should be included if this had been done historically.

Question 12 - Do you agree that we should include an exceptional premises circumstances factor? AGREED

Question 13 - Do you agree that we should allocate funding to local authorities in 2017-18 and 2018-19 based on historic spend for these factors; Business rates; Split sites; Private finance initiatives; Other exceptional circumstances. AGREED

Question 14 - Do you agree that we should include a growth factor? AGREED

Question 15 - Do you agree that we should allocate funding for growth to local authorities in 2017-18 and 2018-19  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Dr K Simmons raised the issue of an appeal system needing to be in place as part of the Contingency Panel process. Members were informed that the appeal system had been used but the outcome was still under debate and that an appropriate process was needed.

The Director of Education said his recollection was that any applications refused by the Contingency Panel were currently referred to Schools Forum for resolution rather than being escalated to the Director of Education or the Lead Member.

Mr Moore suggested that four Members of Schools Forum should act as an Appeal Panel to discuss any applications that had been declined by the Contingency Panel.

The Chairman said it would also be useful to look at the process other local authorities used.

ACTION: An appeal process would be discussed and an update given at the next meeting of Schools Forum. (Chairman/Director of Education/Finance Director)

Election of Chairman

Mrs T Haddon explained that her term of office as a Member of Schools Forum finished at the end of April 2016 and thus a new Chairman would be required. Thanks were given to Mrs Haddon for the work she had undertaken on behalf of Schools Forum.

ACTIONS:

·         Election for a new Chairman of Schools Forum at the May meeting

·         Election for a Combined School Governor representative (Member Services Officer).

The next meeting will take place on Tuesday 3 May 2016, 2.00pm, Green Park, Aston Clinton.

Future meeting dates

21 June                    

27 September          

29 November

The next meeting will take place on Tuesday 3 May 2016, 2pm, the Knight Room, The Coach House, Green Park, Aston Clinton.

Future meeting dates:

21 June

27 September

29 November