Agenda item

Claire White presented the report to outline the Additional Funding Criteria Proposals for 2016/17.

Under the current school funding regulations, no in-year adjustments to funding allocations were permitted and all funding to schools had to be allocated through the approved formula. There were however, four circumstances under which the local authority could provide additional funding:

1. A growth fund for the purpose of supporting growth in pre-16 pupil numbers to meet basic need.
2. A falling rolls fund where a population bulge was expected in the future but where a good and necessary school or academy currently had surplus places and faced an unmanageable funding shortfall in the short term

(The local authority was required to produce criteria on which any growth funding or falling rolls fund was to be allocated.)

3. Funding for schools in financial difficulty.
4. Funding from the high needs block could be used to allocate additional funding to schools with a disproportionate number of high needs pupils.

The only proposed change for 2016/17 was to the growth fund for new schools, having received some further clarification on this from the DfE. Although a new school would not be opened until September 2017 at the earliest, it would be advisable to have the criteria in place as soon as possible for new schools to be able to estimate their likely funding well in advance, and for the Schools’ Forum to be aware of the likely cost to be met from the DSG (no additional DSG funding for new schools).

The change was in relation to diseconomies of scale funding for new schools. The DfE had clarified that whilst a new school was growing to full capacity, the local authority could agree with the new school the number of pupils it required for it to be financially viable, and use this number for funding the school through the formula. This would be instead of an estimate of actual pupil numbers being formula funded plus diseconomy of scale funding from the growth fund. The advantage would be that there was certainty of the funding level at an early stage which would be beneficial for both the school, and Schools’ Forum in determining costs against the DSG budget. A number of local authorities were now using this method. It was therefore proposed to remove diseconomy of scale funding from the growth fund, and fund via the formula instead. This should make no difference to the amount of funding required overall from the DSG budget.

Bruce Steiner enquired whether other Local Authorities were taking this approach. Claire White responded that it was discussed at a meeting in Summer 2014 with other local authorities and the DfE had issued guidance to encourage Local Authorities to take this action.

Graham Spellman noted that the opening of a new schools might incur additional costs of up to £100k. Claire White confirmed that before a new school opened it would need funding from the Growth Fund for the costs of any staff recruited upfront; there would be a cap of £75k.

Graham Spellman pressed the need for existing schools to be made aware of another school opening and the impact that this might have on the funding they would receive. Caroline Corcoran commented that schools received the formula information and Ian Pearson agreed that a briefing note would be useful in order to share that information with schools.

Claire White reminded Forum members that they needed to agree the budgets for each additional fund. The proposals outlined in the report were that they were kept the same but members would need to be mindful of the changes to the growth fund when setting the 2017/18 budget.

DECISION: that the criteria and funding be agreed as laid out in the report and its appendices.