Agenda item

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

Further to minute 6, dated 11 October 2022, Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Commercial Business Partner, presented the report, and stated the following:

·  theEducation and Skills Funding Agency(ESFA) were contacted on 12 October in order for the Local Authority (LA) to obtain clarification of legitimate options under the current regulations to allocate additional funding to schools including from DSG reserves. The response received was that a blanket approach would be via the annual delegated budget via the Authority Pro-forma Tool (APT) but this would be limited to the tightening rules. These are the rules that mean that LA’s funding formulae are supposed to be moving at least 10% closer to the National Funding Formula (NFF) each year;

·  as the LA mirrored the NFF in 2021/22, this means we can only go up to 2.5% above any of the NFF rates. As over half of schools are receiving protection from the Minimum Funding Guarantee (MFG) the response clarified that a disapplication request would be required to allow the funding to be passed on fully and that this would need to be a one-off. The only other option suggested by ESFA was to distribute additional targeted high needs funding pot to encourage schools to be more inclusive or assist schools with high numbers of high needs pupils. As targeted high needs funding guidance states that this should only be received by a minority of an LA’s schools, this option is limited as a mechanism for getting additional funding to all schools;

·  the most simple and transparent approach for getting additional funding out to all schools consistently is through the basic per pupil rate. The maximum uplift to the per pupil rates that will be permissible across all key stages is £85, which would take the primary basic per pupil rate 2.5% above the NFF rate of £3,403. Based on October 2021 pupil numbers, funding all primary and secondary schools at an extra £85 would equate to an additional £3.662m. The actual distribution would be based on October 2022 census pupil numbers once confirmed and will depend on the exact funding available, as outlined in the financial implications section of the report;

·  a consultation with mainstream schools was undertaken during 15-29 November 2022. This included a question as to whether this was a fair approach to distributing additional funding. A summary of consultation responses is included at appendix B to the report.

·  a disapplication request was submitted to the ESFA by the 18 November deadline. This asked for permission to adjust the MFG for schools receiving protection as a one-off in 2023/24 to allow them to benefit from up to a maximum of £85 per pupil. The disapplication request will be updated with the outcomes of the consultation and Schools Forum vote on recommendation 1;

·  the report proposes the utilisation of £1.438m from the DSG reserve to partially fund the proposed one-off distribution to mainstream schools in 2023/24. This is the balance of £2m, which was ring-fenced in the DSG reserve to be allocated in conjunction with the Schools Forum sub-group for initiatives to help reduce exclusions. Having funded some short-term project costs associated with ‘Routes to Inclusion’ and costs of the Intensive Support Team in a trial phase, there are currently no concrete proposals for the balance of this funding, despite ideas having being sought from schools/settings by sub-group members;

·  in the light of the financial pressures on budgets and heightened needs of pupils post-Covid, a general distribution of this balance to all schools now seems appropriate. However, given this proposal is funded through DSG reserves set aside to help promote inclusion, along with funding from high needs, the LA will be asking that schools ensure that this additional funding is prioritised to protect expenditure from their delegated budget on support for SEN pupils and activity to help support the continued inclusion of vulnerable pupils;

·  whilst the CSSB block transfer moves funding out of high needs for 2023/24, there is a high level of interdependency between the service delivery and outcomes of the Education Welfare service, the inclusion of vulnerable pupils and work of other DSG funded teams. Two clear examples of this are the relationship between AP oversight and responsibility for children EOTAS and the exclusion process and fair access admissions in-year for children at risk of permanent exclusion.

·  similarly, children without a school place (WASP) have failed to acquire a school place through the admissions process and are case managed through Access & Inclusions, however, to improve outcomes requires more intensive welfare support that the admission team are not resourced to provide. The intervention from Education Welfare services would improve outcomes in reducing barriers to access education, reduce vulnerability, and support with provision of a school place and follow through of school attendance orders and parenting orders where required;

·  the additional budget transfer only applies to mainstream schools and not to high needs settings. Whereas mainstream schools are subject to the NFF, funding for high needs settings is at the discretion of the LA. This means that the LA is able to agree top-up funding at a level that adequately covers cost pressures. Special school funding was being reviewed in depth for 2023/24 as part of a 4-year cycle, and will take account of cost pressures. The LA agrees top-up funding for other high needs settings at a level to cover actual costs of delivering provision when this information is made available;

·  In order to ensure that high needs provision and pupils are not disadvantaged through the High Needs Block transfer, in the event that the high needs budget requirement for 2023/24 is higher than originally anticipated, funding can be drawn from the unallocated DSG reserve as outlined in the financial section of the report.

Resolved

(1)  to agree to fund schools by up to £85 per pupil higher than the National Funding Formula in 2023/24, funded through a combination of a High Needs to Schools Block transfer and use of the £1.438m ring-fenced reserve balance;

(2)  to note that implementation of recommendation 1 is subject to Secretary of State approval of a disapplication request to permit Nottingham City Council to fund at a level higher than the minimum funding guarantee for those schools receiving protection;

(3)  to approve a block transfer for 2023/24 of up to £2m from the High Needs Block to the Schools Block;

(4)  to approve a block transfer for 2023/24 of £0.458m from the High Needs Block to the Central Schools Services Block.

The meeting was quorate and, of the members eligible, the recorded vote was as follows:

- 11 in favour of all resolutions;

- no votes against any resolution;

- 1 abstention in respect of all resolutions.

Nick Lee

Director of Education Services