Agenda item

Joint report of Corporate Directors for People / Finance and Resources

Julia Holmes and Collins Elechi, Senior Commercial Business Partners, presented the report, and stated the following:

a)  the report details the proposed school’s budget for the financial year 2024/25, prepared in line with parameters agreed previously by the Forum and with financial regulations issued by the Department for Education;

b)  as outlined in a report to the 05 December 2023 Forum meeting, for 2024/25 the Local Authority has continued to move away from the standard approach of setting a school’s budget that balances the budgets by block to the Dedicated Schools Grant income received, as was the approach in 2023/24;

c)  indicative individual school budgets, Early Years and High Needs funding allocations, along with guidance notes, will be issued by 28 February 2024;

d)  some figures in the report are currently draft and a final version will be included in an appendix to these minutes.

Resolved

(1)  Dedicated Schools Grant

to note:

a)   the overall indicative 2024/25 Schools Budget to be spent incorporating the Schools, Central Schools Services, Early Year’s, and High Need’s blocks is £376.155m, funded by:

  i.  £374.246m provisional 2024/25 Dedicated Schools Grant allocation;

  ii.  reimbursement of £0.302m funding paid to academies for pupil growth for April to August 2024;

  iii.  £1.493m from Dedicated Schools Grant reserves to support the additional one-off distribution to mainstream schools, from the balance earmarked for distribution in the reserve for pupil growth (approved by Forum at the meeting held on 05 December 2023);

  iv.  £0.104m from the Dedicated Schools Grant reserve to fund the shortfall in funding in the Schools Block in 2024/25 as per resolution (2) below (and detailed in paragraph 2.6.1 of the report);

b)  that the budget will be updated in-year to reflect subsequent adjustments made by the Education and Skills Funding Agency to the authorities 2024/25 Dedicated Schools Grant allocation (as detailed in the report);

c)  that any balance remaining will be allocated to the Statutory School reserve, including a £2.669m balance of the provisional Dedicated Schools Grant allocation, which represents a proportion of the additional High Needs funding announced in the Autumn Statement, and that if any new High Needs budget requirements arise in year, over and above those planned from the budget outlined in the report, then separate in-year approval will be sought from Forum;

d)  the impact to schools’ budgets of the indicative allocation (as set out in Table 5, section 2.5 of the report);

(2)  to approve the allocation of £0.104m from the Dedicated Schools Grant reserve to fund the shortfall in funding in the Schools Block in 2024/25 (as detailed in paragraph 2.6.1 of the report);

(3)  Additional one-off Dedicated Schools Grant distribution to mainstream schools

to note that the budget detailed in the report includes the distribution of one-off additional funding to mainstream schools by leaving in for 2024/25 the additional £85 per pupil allocated in the financial year 2023/24 baselines, amounting to £1.748m;

(4)  Dedicated Schools Grant block transfers

to note that the 2024/25 budget incorporates the £0.508m High Needs to Central School Services Block transfer approved by Forum at the meeting held on 05 December 2023;

(5)  Early Years

to note that total planned Early Years central expenditure aligns to the £1.025m approved by Forum at the meeting held on 05 December 2023;

(6)  Pupil Premium

to note that the allocation of Pupil Premium funding will be allocated to schools in accordance with the Dedicated Schools Grant conditions.