Agenda item

The report of Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children & Education) seeks to update Schools Forum on issues related to the early years, central school services and high needs blocks for 2022-23 and the decisions that will need to be made as part of the budget setting process for the 2022-23 financial year.

Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) referred to the report which sought to update Schools Forum on issues related to the early years, central school services and high needs blocks for 2022-23 and the decisions that will need to be made as part of the budget setting process for the 2022-23 financial year and highlighted the following:

• Early years - In line with previous years, limited information for Wiltshire was available as yet in relation to early years funding.  In the 2021 Spending Review the Chancellor announced national funding increases of £160m, £180m and £170m for the next three years.  It had also been announced that

i)             A 30% increase in the Disability Access Fund which was up £185 to £800 per annum per eligible child.

ii)            An increase of £40 to £342 for the early years Pupil Premium

iii)           A 2 year old funding increase of £0.21p per hour so rates would rise to £5.69 per hour subject to discussions at the next meeting of the Early Years reference group in January

iv)           The 3 and 4 year old funding increase was yet to be confirmed but it was anticipated to be in the region of £0.16p so perhaps rising to £4.41 per hour.

• Settings had been advised not to make any planning decisions until the allocations for Wiltshire had been received later in December;

• The provisional allocations for the high needs block were an uplift of 8.39% and 6.07% for the central block;

• The DfE have been reducing historic commitments.  Wiltshire has been allocated £0.294m for historic commitments based on those commitments agreed as eligible in 2021-22 reduced by 20% of £0.073m;

• The central schools services block allocates funding to the LA to carry out central functions on behalf of pupils of maintained schools and academies.  Schools Forum approval was required on a line by line basis for the group of services which are funded from the central schools’ block.  An assumed level of inflation had been applied to the central copyright licences in section A;

• For Section B it was proposed to apply salary inflation of 2% to reflect the 2% pay award for staff which was expected next year;

• For Section C historic commitments it was proposed to follow factors for 2022-23.  It was proposed to keep the funding for CiC Personal Education Plans at the same level, apply a level of inflation to the Child Protection in Schools Advisers and reduce the amount committed to prudential  borrowing;

• There would be a report later in the meeting relating to the DfE consultation around the removal of the School Improvement Grant amount and the School Funding working group had held an extraordinary meeting in September to formulate a response on behalf of School Forum.  Assuming the proposed budget is accepted by Schools Forum, an amount of £0.219m unallocated CSSB was estimated as available and could be used as in previous years, to transfer to fund high needs pressures or, in light of the proposed reduction and removal of the school improvement brokerage and monitoring grant, an increased allocation could be used by the local authority to support any school requiring support;

• High needs would hopefully see an 8% increase; however the high needs formula was updated to our detriment due to the lower numbers of learners with statements in 2017-18 than in more recent years.  Whist the additional funding of an additional £4.825 announcement in July is most welcome it does not fully address the magnitude of the cumulative pressures from previous financial  years nor does it fully address the anticipated pressure for the 2021-22 financial year for Wiltshire;

• The SEN review was now promised in the first quarter of 2022. It was hoped that a national resolution could be found to ensure funding levels better reflect local demands;

• An early assessment of the pressures on the high needs block for 2022-23 was shared and highlighted that it was not possible to fully fund the pressures from within the high needs block.  The high needs block allocation for 2021-22 was £62.354 million with a transfer from the central block surplus of £0.219 million and a potential transfer from school’s block of 0.5% of £1.580 million plus a transfer of the excess growth fund which would still see a funding shortfall; and

• The DfE management plan and an update from the second informal meeting would be discussed at the January Forum meeting.

Resolved: That Schools Forum

1.     Note the early years information in the report and that the budget for early years will be considered in full at the January 2022 meeting.

2.     Note the central services information in the report and the required decisions in relation to the central school’s block budget for 2022-23 and agree the decisions in principle in advance of setting the Schools budget in January 2022.

i)             Section A – consult only

ii)            Section B – approve on a line-by-line basis (including a potential transfer to the high needs block or, pending the local consultation additional DSG funding to support school improvement.)

iii)          Section C – approve on a line-by-line basis

3.        Note that any updates around the DfE consultation to remove the school improvement monitoring and brokering grant will be brought to the January 2022 meeting for update and decision.

4.         Note the pressures on the high needs block for 2022-23 and the potential options to reduce the shortfall against high needs budgets including agreeing a transfer from Schools Block to balance the high needs pressures. This will be considered in full at the January 2022 meeting alongside the recovery plan. That Schools Forum note the report and consider the questions raised in the report.