Agenda item

Action

Claire White provided an update on the DSG Budget for 2014/15. Since the last Schools’ Forum meeting both the high needs funding for 2014/15 and early years funding for 2013/14 has been confirmed. This means that the Schools’ Forum now need to agree any changes to the budget 2014/15 as a result of changes to the funding.

SCHOOLS BLOCK

None of the budget on the de-delegated fund for primary schools in financial difficulty (£115,680) was used, but it should be retained only for maintained primary schools.

DECISION: The Schools Forum agreed to carry forward the primary schools in financial difficulty de-delegated funding from 2013/14 to 2014/15.

This takes the total over spend on the schools block 2014/15 to £166k. The option is to either budget to over spend the DSG or meet it from the high needs contingency.

DECISION: Budget an over spend on the schools block.

EARLY YEARS BLOCK

The 2013/14 funding has been confirmed and is £5,590 higher than estimated. The funding for the financial year 2014/15 will remain provisional until May 2015 as the funding is based on 5/12 of the January 2014 census and 7/12 of the January 2015 census. The early years funding is currently a shortfall of £96k with a proposal that the difference will be deducted from the early year’s contingency budget.

DECISION: Reduce the early year’s contingency budget from £355k to £259k.

HIGH NEEDS BLOCK

The short fall in the high needs block 2014/15 is £722k.

The forecasting of high needs expenditure at month 10 on which the budget set for 2014/15 was based was significantly lower and reduced the under spend to be carried forward from £1,518k to £1,000k a movement of £518k. Forecasting needs to be more robust in the high needs block at month 10 to enable more accurate budget setting.

In addition there were of adjustments from the DfE for 2014/15 resulting in an overall reduction of £204k. These adjustments included an additional £291k in national headroom funding, a reduction of £56k due to ‘ineligible places’, which is currently being appealed and a mismatch between the funding received from the EFA for place funding and the place funding recouped by the EFA and paid direct to the providers.  

DECISION: It was agreed that the shortfall is deducted from the high needs contingency budget reducing it from £1,501k to £779k.

ACTION: Amendments to be made to the DSG 2014/15 budget as set out above.

CWhite