Agenda item

Joint report of Corporate Directors of People & Finance and Resources

Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Commercial Business Partner, presented the report, and stated the following:

·  as the Department of Education move towards the implementation of the Direct National Funding Formula for schools, local authorities have been advised in the ‘Schools Operational Guide: 2023 to 2024’ that they must apply to the Secretary of State for approval for the use of the exceptional circumstances factor in the financial year 2023/24 if the latest approval was prior to 2018/19;

·  Nottingham City Council (NCC) received approval for the use of exceptional circumstances factor for the financial year 2013/14. This factor is used to allocate funding to schools that were built under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Design & Build (D&B) scheme, whereby both the school and the local authority had to commit to funding a lifecycle fund so that the buildings could be maintained to the same standard as a new Private Finance Initiative school for 25 years from the date of completion;

·  the purpose of the report was to seek the view of Schools Forum on the disapplication request to the Secretary of State for approval to include BSF funding to the schools that currently attract this funding;

·  the deadline for submitting the disapplication request is 18 November 2022;

·  the local authority is contractually obliged to fund Bluecoat Beechdale Academy for BSF lifecycle costs until the financial year 2034/35, and Ellis Guilford School until 2036/37. These two schools equate to 2.13% of our schools, therefore NCC meet the threshold of less than 5% of our schools attracting this funding;

·  the funding allocated to each school is based on the previous year’s allocation and is inflated using the February RPIx as per clause 11 of the Governing Body Agreements with each school;

·  Bluecoat Beechdale Academy manage their own BSF Lifecycle Fund, whereas currently the Ellis Guilford School BSF Lifecycle Fund is managed by the local authority and the academy is invoiced annually for the value of the funding allocated to the academy, which is then held by the local authority in a lifecycle reserve and released to the academy as lifecycle works are undertaken;

·  the estimated BSF Lifecycle funding allocations for 2023/24 have been based on:

1.  adjusting the allocation for 2022/23 to reflect the actual February RPIx (estimate based on 7.23%, actual RPIx 8.34%);

2.  inflating the revised 2022/23 allocation by the estimated inflation for 2023/24, which has been set at 10%;

3.  adding the inflation calculated in 2. to the revised allocation for 2022/23;

·  the forecast schools budget for each academy has been based on the illustrative budgets issued by the Education and Skills Funding Agency for 2023/24, based on the data used in the Authority proforma tool for 2022/23, and then adjusted for the inflation that is to be added to the BSF Lifecycle allocations in 2023/24;

·  the option to ‘do nothing’ was considered, but rejected, as this would create a significant budget issue for the local authority and, as stated above, the local authority is contractually obliged to fund the BSF Lifecycle costs for 25 years, with an agreed commitment to fund Bluecoat Beechdale Academy for a remaining 12 years and Ellis Guilford Schools for a remaining 14 years.

Resolved to agree that the Local Authority apply to the Secretary of State for approval to include exceptional circumstances factor funding in the financial year 2023/24 for Bluecoat Beechdale Academy and Ellis Guilford School (schools that were built under the Building Schools for the Future Scheme).

The meeting was quorate and, of the 14 members in attendance at the meeting, the recorded vote was as follows:

- 13 in favour of the resolution;

- no votes against;

- 1 member absent when the vote was counted.