Verbal update
Minutes:
Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Commercial Business Partner, provided an update following changes to the National Funding Formula as outlined in new guidance from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (EFA);
(a)
the government has announced that the schools budget will rise by
£2.6bn in 2020/21, £4.8bn in 2021/22 and £7.1bn
in 2022/23, compared to 2019/20 funding levels. The settlement also
provides over £700m more to support children with special
educational needs, and an increase to early years spending of
£66m;
(b)
the detail on how individual Local Authorities (LAs) and schools
will be affected will be released in early October 2019. This will
take the form of illustrative provisional allocations at LA level
for the schools and high needs blocks, as well as notional school
level allocations;
(c)
there is going to be an increase of 4% to the formula core factors.
The exceptions are the free school meals factor which will instead
be increased at inflation, and the premises funding which will
continue to be allocated at LA level;
(d)
the funding floor will be set at 1.84%, to protect pupil-led per
pupil funding in real terms. This minimum increase in 2021/22 will
be based on the individual schools’ allocation in 2019/20. As
the majority of Nottingham City schools are already in receipt of
transitional protection, the majority will only see an increase of
1.84% in their funding;
(e)
the minimum per pupil funding will be set at £3,750 for
primary schools and £5,000 for secondary schools. The primary
level will rise to £4,000 in 2021/22. There will be no gains
cap, so that all schools attract their full allocations under the
formula. LAs will be able to use a cap in their local funding
formulae. There will be a new formulaic approach to the mobility
factor rather than basing it on historic spend;
(f)
growth funding will be based on the same methodology as last year,
and will have the same transitional protection ensuring that no LA
will lose more than 0.5% of its 2019/20 schools block
allocation;
(g)
the teachers’ pay grant and teachers’ pension employer
contributions grant will both continue to be paid separately from
the National Funding Formula in 2020/21. The ESFA will publish the
rates that determine the 2020/21 allocations in due
course;
(h)
for high needs the funding floor will be set at 8%, based on
LAs’ high needs allocations in 2019/20, including the
additional £125m announced in December 2018. There will be a
gains cap of 17%, allowing LAs to see up to this percentage
increase under the formula;
(i)
Nottingham City should see an increase in high needs funding of at
least £2.5m, but hopefully more if over 8%. This would enable
them to meet existing high needs pressures and help address the
strategic priorities outlined in the 2018-23 SEND
strategy;
(j)
For the schools block the LA will consult with all schools and
Schools Forum in December 2019 on the proposed changes to the
National Funding Formula, with the result of the consultation and
budget presented to the Forum for approval in January
2020;
(k) The indicative 2020/21 high needs allocation will be issued in December 2019, with the high needs budget presented to Schools Forum in January 2020 as part of the budget report. The Early Years budget will be presented to Schools Forum in December 2019.