Presentation
Minutes:
Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Commercial Business partner, delivered a presentation on a proposed schools block transfer in 2019/20, highlighting the following:
(a)
a schools block transfer is a move of funds from the Schools Block
to another block. There may be a requirement to transfer funds from
the Schools Block to the High Needs block, which would result in
delegated budgets for schools being lower than they would have
been;
(b)
the transfer would require consultation with schools and Schools
Forum approval. If the transfer is in excess of 0.5% or does not
have support of the Forum, it can be submitted to the Secretary of
State. This flexibility may cease from 2010/21 under the new hard
National Funding Formula;
(c)
the transfer may be required as not all schools have signed up to
the devolved Alternative Provision model which would have brought
the High Needs budget back onto a sustainable footing after 2
years. Since 2015/16, the Council has been using funds from the DSG
reserves but these have reduced year on year;
(d)
two options are proposed for implementing the transfer:
·
plan A: a 0.73% block transfer, implemented by cutting funding per
pupil in secondary schools by 1.5% in 2019/20. Schools which are
signed up to the AP devolved model would receive a 35%
reimbursement;
·
plan B: a 0.5% block transfer, implemented by all mainstream
schools foregoing a 0.5% funding increase in 2019/20;
(e)
plan A would require Secretary of State approval, but would not
affect primary schools as well as reducing the impact on secondary
schools participating in the AP devolved model. On average
secondary schools would be worse off by £88k, but the impact
varies according to school size and level of deprivation;
(f)
Plan B is within local control but would affect all schools. Impact
varies according to school size and level of deprivation, but most
primaries’ impact would be less than £10k and secondary
impact would on average be a loss of £24k;
(g) If Secretary of State approval is required, this will need to be done by the end of November 2018. Therefore, a consultation with schools will need to be launched prior to the summer holidays and close in early September so results can be reported back at the October meeting.
The following points were raised during the discussion which followed:
(h)
it would be preferable if the consultation could be slightly
extended as Head Teachers are less likely to respond over the
summer holidays, and if it could be brought to a Head
Teacher’s Briefing session;
(i)
it may be difficult for primary schools to sign up to plan B due to
their already reducing budgets, with some already having deficit
budgets;
(j) the preferred option is still for all secondary schools to sign up to the devolved Alternative Provision model, and if this happens then neither option will be required. 8 schools are already signed up, with another 3 likely to soon and others undecided.
RESOLVED to thank Kathryn for the information provided.