Agenda item

Jane Seymour introduced the report which provided comparative information on High Needs Block spending across local authorities in the South East. Jane Seymour explained that the report included information from the High Needs Block (HNB) Department for Education (DfE) benchmarking tool. The information looked at budgets rather than spending and showed costs per head against other local authorities in the South East.

Jane Seymour drew attention to paragraph 3.3 which showed the five groups that the HNB was grouped into. The data showed that West Berkshire was not significantly out of line with other local authorities in the South East.

Paragraph 3.7 showed that the West Berkshire top up funding in maintained schools, academies, free schools and FE colleges was £206 per head, which was slightly above the South East average of £196 per head, but below the England average of £216 per head.

West Berkshire’s per head budget for non-maintained and independent special schools (paragraph 3.8) was £122, which was higher than the South East average of £111.

Data showed that West Berkshire spent less on SEN support services. Brighton and Hove had very high spend on these services, which it was thought might be to help more children stay in mainstream schools. This required further investigation.

The West Berkshire Therapies Budget showed in the benchmarking tool as £8 per head compared to the South East average of £3 per head and a range of £0 to £14 per head. This was the biggest discrepancy between West Berkshire and the South East average and required further investigation as it was thought that the data might not be accurate.

Jane Seymour reported that Appendix 2 showed overspend on HNBs across 2017/18 and all but three local authorities had overspent. West Berkshire was the second lowest in terms of how much it had overspent at 2.8%. 

RESOLVED that the Schools Forum noted the report.