Issue - meetings

Joint report of the Corporate Director for People and the Director of Education Services

Nick Lee, Director of Education Services, introduced the report which proposes to transfer Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) funding from the High Needs Block to the Central Schools Service Block and the distribution of additional funding to primary and secondary schools through the local funding formula in 2024/25. This decision will be regarding the passporting of ring-fenced grant funding, so subject to Department for Education grant conditions which must be considered as part of the internal council process relating to the S114 notice.

Julia Holmes, Senior Commercial Business Partner (Childrens and Education) and Collins Elechi, Senior Commercial Business Partner (Finance), delivered the report which outlined the following information:

(a)  for the financial year 2024/25, the Local Authority (LA) proposes to continue to move away from the standard budget setting approach of balancing block budgets to the DSG income received for each specific block as it did in the financial year 2023/24;

(b)  at the December 2022 Schools Forum meeting, permission was granted to transfer from the High Needs Block (HNB) £0.458m to the Central Schools Services Block (CSSB) and up to £2m to the School Block (SB). This year, permission is being sought to transfer HNB funding of £0.508m to the CSSB to allow for the additional cost of the Education Welfare Team which was approved by Schools Forum last year. This is an allowable cost under the DSG;

(c)  permission is also being sought for the distribution of additional funding to primary and secondary above the schools’ national funding formula for 2024/25; 

(d)  in the financial year 2023/24, primary and secondary schools were given an additional £85 per pupil through the basic entitlement factor. To enable the additional funding to be passed onto all schools including maintained schools and academies on the Minimum Funding Guarantee (MFG), permission was granted to the Secretary of State to make a one-off technical adjustment to ensure that schools on the MFG would receive the additional £85 per pupil;

(e)  the LA is concerned that some schools may not be able to set a balanced budget in 2024/25 due to cost pressures. Since the Schools Forum meeting on 10 October 2023, the LA has been looking into options to pass on additional funding to maintained schools and academies. The ESFA have been contacted to see what options are available. The only other option available is to leave in the additional funding that was given last year in the 2023/24 baseline funding. This proposal has been modelled and this would generate additional funding of £1.988m for mainstream maintained schools and academies in the FY 2024/25. 90 of the 94 schools would get the additional funding. The remaining four schools attract additional funding next year through a one of these factors: split site factor, exceptional premises factor (Building Schools for the Future) or the Private Finance Initiative funding factor; 

(f)  the level of additional funding per school is calculated on the make-up of pupils and factors they attract. On average, primary schools will receive £18,500 per school  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17