Verbal update and presentation
Minutes:
Julia Holmes, Senior Commercial Business Partner (Childrens and Education), presented the update into the Schools and High Needs funding for the 2024/25 academic year. The following information was highlighted:
(a) on Friday 6 October, the Department of Education announced that they had miscalculated the Schools National Funding Formula (NFF) for the 2024/25 academic year. The number of pupils nationally had been underestimated, so the planned national increase of 2.7% in funding per pupil has been revised to 1.9%. This does not affect the Central Schools Services Block. The figures have been updated in the presentation to reflect this miscalculation;
(b) the 2023/24 Mainstream Schools Additional Grant has been rolled into the schools NFF in 2024/25. The NFF factor values have been increased on top of the amounts that have already been added for the Mainstream Schools Additional Grant;
(c) the Free School Meals (FSM) factor had been increased by 1.6%;
(d) the basic entitlement, Low Prior Attainment (LPA), free school meals at any time in the last 6 years (FSM6), English as an additional language (EAL), income deprivation affecting children index (IDACI), mobility, and the lump sum factors have been increased by 1.4%;
(e) Local Authorities (LAs) are expected to move their factor rates 10% closer to the NFF factor values. Nottingham City Council (NCC) mirrors the NFF but not all LAs do this;
(f) the minimum funding guarantee (MFG) has been set at 0.5% per pupil;
(g) the minimum per pupil levels (MPPL) have been increased by 1.4%. Primary schools will receive at least £4,610 per pupil and secondary schools £5,995 per pupil;
(h) there has been no increase on the funding of premises factors except for the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) which has increased by Retail Prices Index excluding mortgage interest payments (RPIX) which is 10.4% for the year to April 2023 and split sites which has been formularised based on a national criteria;
(i) there are new requirements for pupil growth funding. Funding is going to be allocated to LAs for falling rolls and a new criteria for allocating funding falling rolls funding has been introduced;
(j) the Teachers’ Pay Additional Grant introduced in September 2023 will continue in the financial year 2024/25. The grant will then be added into the schools NFF in the financial year 2025/26;
(k) based on the illustrative funding allocations released by the Department of Education for 2024/25 on 6 October 2023, 37.3% of Nottingham City primary schools and 31.6% of our secondary schools will only be receiving an increase of 0.5% per pupil. This is a concern given that the proposed pay awards are likely to be higher than 0.5%;
(l) the number of primary schools in the City of Nottingham in receipt of the Minimum Funding Guarantee (MFG) has fallen by 13 from 2023/24 to 2024/25. The number of primary schools on the Schools NFF has increased by 13 from 2023/24 to 2024/25;
(m)the largest increases in funding per pupil from the Schools Block can be found in primary schools;
(n) the proposed approach to setting maintained schools and academies Individual School Budgets in the financial year 2024/25 will involve the removal of the one-off funding of £85 per pupil from schools baselines for the financial year 2023/24;
(o) a new free school (Waterside Primary Academy) will be funding through the funding formula. It is due to open in September 2024;
(p) the Council will endeavour to set the MFG as near to 0.5% as possible as in previous financial years;
(q) if there is a shortfall when setting the 2024/25 Schools Block, the Council may propose to use some of the funding that is earmarked within the Statutory School Reserve as underspends on pupil growth in the financial years 2020/21 to 2022/23 (See Minute 32 of the Schools Forum minutes dated 27 June 2023);
(r) regarding the Central Schools Services Block, there is no change to how central schools services funding for ongoing commitments is calculated in 2024/25. A further cut of 20% applied to historic commitments funding in 2024/25. This brings the total reduction in historic commitments funding between 2020/21 to 2024/25 to £3.740m;
(s) NCC will receive an increase of 1.48% per pupil for ongoing responsibilities;
(t) the £1.768m in funding for ongoing commitments in the Central Schools Services Block is based on October 2022 pupil numbers, but it will be updated to reflect the pupils on the October 2023 school census in December 2023. It will also include £29,000 in additional funding for copyright licences due to increased cost in 2023/24. This is based on a rate of £0.67 per pupil;
(u) all LAs receive an increase of between 3% and 5% per head of the 2-18 population for 2024/25. Nottingham will receive the ceiling 5% increase which equates to an indicative £2.835m increase;
During the discussion and in response from questions from the Forum, the following points were raised:
(v) as a result of the revised illustrative Schools NFF allocations being released on 6 October 2023 by the Department of Education, there will be £1.892m or £50 per pupil less in funding for all schools and academies in the city than originally forecast. The Department of Education’s error in the funding calculations will be communicated to all schools and academies to make them aware of the impact on their budgets for 2024/25;
(w) the Department of Education has stated that quality assurance checks will be introduced to make sure that these miscalculations never happen again;
(x) schools are already making redundancies and this budget reforecasting will make it worse;
(y) the Forum to express the distress and disappointment at the DFE’s miscalculations within the Schools Funding;
(z) the mistake in the calculation of the Schools NFF for the financial year 2024/25 was identified in September;
(aa) there will be £50,000 less in funding per secondary schools and academies;
(bb)a national response from Multi-Academy Trusts, Schools Forums, LAs, the Local Government Association (LGA) and the trade unions is required to express their frustration and anger at the Department of Education’s mistake;
(cc) the teaching union’s pay award for school support staff was not fully funded. The fallout from the Department of Education’s miscalculated figures will be discussed with the union’s executive. There could be potential union action resulting from this.
Resolved to:
1. note the report;
2. share the School Forum’s position with Councillor Cheryl Barnard as the Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Education and to convey the Forum’s position to the Government;
3. LA to communicate with schools and academies about the miscalculations of the Schools National Funding Formula.