Agenda item

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) seeks to brief Schools Forum and agree a set of questions to be sent out to all schools in October 2021.

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) referred to the report which sought to brief Schools Forum about the proposed consultation to schools and to agree the questions to be sent out to schools and highlighted the following:

De-Delegation

·         De-delegation of a limited number of budgets/services was available to
maintained schools only and they would be consulted on their views on the delegation or de-delegation of central budgets for the following budgets/services:  

i)     Free School Meal Eligibility Service

ii)    Licences (Access Budget Planning)

iii)   Trade Union Facilities costs

iv)   Maternity costs

v)    Ethnic Minority Achievement Service

vi)   Travellers Education Service

vii) Behaviour Support Service

·         As part of the consultation, maintained schools could agree that budgets should be de-delegated and retained centrally by the LA with services provided to all maintained schools, or agree that budgets should be delegated, and schools make/purchase their own provision as appropriate or agree that budgets should be delegated, and they then cluster together to purchase or deliver services;

·         Under the second and third options above, the LA would not be able to continue to deliver a service unless there is sufficient buy back on a traded basis from schools (maintained or academy) to enable retention of sufficient staff. This will be difficult to predict, and the LA will need to decide whether it can afford to continue to deliver services centrally on a fully traded basis with full cost recovery. This would require a risk assessment;

School Budgets

·         In previous years Schools Forum had agreed to a transfer from the school’s block to the high needs to contribute to the high needs recovery plan.  The high needs block overspend for 2020-21 was £11.507M which correlates to the continuing rise in request for new Education and Health Care Plans (EHCPS) and banding/funding increases. At the end of the last financial year the DSG reserve held an £18.717m deficit;

·         Although the deficit is supported by a recovery plan, this is a long-term
programme of change. The requirement for significant additional funding at national level is clear and acknowledged by the DfE; and

·         It is recommended that we seek views of all schools on the questions in Appendix 2 which covers a range of options ranging from transferring
funding from the Schools Block.  The results of the consultation would be presented to Schools Forum in December.

Marie Taylor reported that the DfE were not keen to disapply the regulations and Gemma Donolly from the DfE had reported that as there had been a change in Minister they may not agree to transfers of over 0.5%.  It had been suggested that as part of the consultation a figure of over 0.5% transfer could be added back into the list of options to see what schools think of this as an option to close the gap. 

The Chair reported that if they did agree to more than a 0.5% transfer that would only fill the hole a bit more and not fully and felt that we needed to have the findings of the SEN review to see a way forward but agreed that it could be added as an option in the consultation but that she had a view on what schools’ responses would be on that.

Resolved:

That Schools Forum:

i)      Agree the consultation questions for maintained schools around delegation/de-delegation of budgets for central services within the schools’ block as set out in Appendix 1.

ii)     Agree the consultation questions for all schools around setting the 2022-23 Schools Budget as set out in Appendix 2.