Agenda item

The purpose of this report is to provide an update to the Schools Forum on a revision to the funding rates to be used by the Department of Education (DfE) for funding mainstream schools in the 2024-25 Financial Settlement. It also provides an update on responses from schools to the annual financial consultation.

Paul Clark provided an update to the Schools Forum on 2024-25 funding matters.

In October an update was given from the DfE on the 2024/25 financial settlement. In general, the DfE was offering reduced levels of funding available for school in comparison to what it had originally announced in July 2023. For the 2024/25 financial year there was to be on average an 0.8% reduction in funding per pupil in England in comparison to their original announcement. Furthermore, there was to be £93.318 million made available for the Bracknell Forest Schools Block DSG, £0.9M less than the originally announced £94.218M.

At the previous meeting of the Schools Forum there had been a request for modelling on what the DSG income in the HNB for Bracknell Forest be if it was factored on a 9% increase, which is what Bracknell Forest has received for a number of years. On reviewing the data, an alternative approach was presented which showed what the increase would have been if from 2018/19 Bracknell Forest’s HNB DSG had increased at the same rate in which the number of pupils with an EHCP had increased. If it had done so, the grant would be £29.85M in 2022/23 instead of the just over £20M which was received.

The outcomes from the annual financial consultation with schools were also presented although no decisions were sought at this time as further budget proposals are likely to follow from the Safety Valve, all of which should be considered at the same time. Responses had been received from over half of schools. There were 6 main questions asked in this consultation all of which received support from a large majority of responders. The question were:

1.   Should minimum increases in per pupil funding be set at the maximum permitted amount of +0.5%?

2.   Should the cost of financing any impact from 1. be met from deductions to schools receiving the highest % increase?

3.   Should de-delegation continue on permitted services?

4.   Should maintained schools continue to contribute £20 per pupil to LA statutory education related costs?

5.   Is the best way to calculate notional SEN through the actual number of pupils on SEN support or in receipt of an EHCP

6.   Should individual school Notional SEN Funding amounts be calculated from the key proxy SEN funding factors in the NFF plus an element of core per pupil funding amounts?

In discussion the following points were noted by the forum:

·   The Forum had huge concern over section 2.4 off the report, where the funding settlement had fallen from 2.7% to 1.7%, before any potential implications of the Safety Valve had been factored in. It was felt the only way the schools could manage this update to the funding formula would be real term cuts, due to staffing pay awards and inflation. The forum had extreme concern on the impact these cuts would have for children in the Borough.

·   There was concern that this budget if implemented could cause a number of Strategic Risk Management Issues, due to the effect real term cuts would have on schools.

·   Cllr Bailey confirmed their had yet to be a response from James Sunderland MP about the concerns over funding of Schools in Bracknell Forest.

·   There was concern over the effects on smaller schools, and it was felt the impact on smaller schools should be considered in the budget.

·   The need to raise awareness with parents about the Local authority’s financial situation and its ability to support schools financially particularly SEN.

The forum noted the 2023/24 forecast budget monitoring position for the Schools Budget, however wanted to place on record their objection in the strongest terms to what would be a real-term cut and that those cuts would pose significant risks to the children in the Borough.