Agenda item

All actions were completed or in hand apart from Mar21-Ac3, which would be updated on verbally:

Mar21-Ac3: Final High Needs Block, Update on invest to save decision: Ian Pearson reported that that at the last Schools’ Forum meeting on 8^th March it had been agreed that a further 0.25% should be transferred from the Schools’ Block to the High Needs Block to support ‘invest to save’ initiatives. It had however, not been agreed how exactly the money should be deployed and this had needed to be discussed further at the Heads’ Funding Group (HFG).

Ian Pearson reported that following discussions the HFG had not reached a decision and therefore he had undertaken further discussions with the primary and secondary headteacher groups. Regarding the final allocation of the funding, both primary and secondary groups had been in support of a pot of funding (£52,685) to be provided for schools to support children with ASD that were at risk of requiring specialist placements. This funding could now be accessed by schools.

Ian Pearson reported that there had been a lot of discussion at the HFG regarding the relative difference in the level of needs across the primary and secondary phases and which were causing financial pressures. It had been felt by headteachers that these were not the same for each phase and therefore the money should be allocated differently across primary and secondary. Therefore the remaining sum of funding (£221,315) would be split between the two phases equally. The secondary phase funding would be divided between the 10 secondary schools equally to support retaining SEND children. The primary phase funding would be used on a twelve month basis to support coordinated Emotional Based School Avoidance (EBSA) work in primary schools.

Ian Pearson reported that evaluation would be required against all elements of the funding, including from individual schools. Secondary schools could choose to use their funding to buy into the primary strategic EBSA support service arrangements and any secondary school wishing to do this needed to declare their intention by end of June 2021. 

Ian Pearson concluded that he had been delegated authority to agree how the funding should be deployed and therefore he had written to the HFG to confirm what had been agreed after consultation with both school phases.

Mar21-Ac6, Resourced Schools – Funding bands for children with physical disabilities: Ian Pearson reported that benchmarking data would be sought from the south east regional group of local authorities regarding funding levels of physical disabilities (PD) and presented to a meeting of the HFG in the autumn 2021.

RESOLVED that an item on benchmarking data on funding levels PD to be added to the forward plan for the HFG in October 2021.