Agenda item

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) seeks to update Schools Forum on the DfE’s response to the consultation ‘Reforming how Local Authorities School Improvement functions are funded’ and provides feedback from the local consultation sessions.

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) referred to the report which sought to update Schools Forum on the DfE’s response to the consultation ‘Reforming how Local Authorities School Improvement functions are funded’ and provides feedback from the local consultation sessions and highlighted the following:

·         The DfE released its consultation on 29 October 2021 with a closing date for responses of 26 November 2021.  The Schools Funding and SEN Working Group met to discuss a response – this was shared with schools and all schools, governors and other stakeholders were encouraged to also respond to the consultation;

·         The School Improvement Monitoring and Brokering Grant (SIMB) Grant had been provided to local authorities since 2017 to help fulfil their core school improvement activities;

·         The DfE published the results of the consultation on 11 January 2022 and confirmed that they would be reducing the SIMB Grant by 50% in 2022-23 and would remove in full in 2023-24.  They would also allow local authorities to fund their school improvement activity via de-delegation from school’s budget shares;

·         The consultation was well supported with 565 responses which included a significant number from Wiltshire of 40 responses (over 7% of all responses);

·         The DfE consider that the SIMB Grant had been primarily used for providing improvement functions including early support and challenge to improve school performance rather than for exercising formal intervention powers;

·         Schools had felt that there was a strong argument in favour of early intervention to prevent the need for having to exercise formal intervention, however this appears to have carried little weight for the future funding of the grant;

·         The DfE currently expect MAT’s and academies to fund this cost from their budgets and for this reason they believe it is right to move towards removing this grant and put school improvement funding on a more even footing;

·         The Secretary of State would retain the power to approve the de-delegation contrary to decisions of the Schools Forum if they were satisfied that the Council had demonstrated that such de-delegation was necessary to ensure the Council is adequately funded to exercise core school improvement activities;

·         Obviously, most of the responses to consultation wished for the SIMB Grant to continue, however removal would bring funding arrangements for local authorities’ school improvement activity closer in line with academies and would enable Councils to better adjust over tie to the Governments long term ambition for all schools to become academies;

·         The DfE would update the Schools Causing Concern guidance to ensure that there was more clarity on the core school improvement functions going forward;

·         Following a local consultation to gain a steer of opinion - at the December meeting of the Forum, maintained school representatives were asked to give their views and they had asked for the decision to be deferred to this meeting to enable them to carry out further consultation with their maintained school colleagues to gain a broader response;

·         The Primary Heads Forum Executive liaised with its members and the Director of Education and Skills arranged two information sessions, including a Q&A opportunity for schools to raise any concerns or queries. Of the local consultation 86% were in support of de-delegation and at the two information sessions 100% and 87% of respondents were in support of de-delegation;

·         The consultation for the de-delegation of funding for services for maintained schools must be performed annually and therefore the opportunity exists for maintained schools to participate in shaping the school improvement services in the future;

Cllr Dominic Muns (Portfolio Holder for Education) wished to share the context and thoughts from the Council’s elected member perspective – The vast majority of local authority spend was on adult social care and Members had fought hard to ensure that there was adequate funding for children, education and skills with a focus on a level of early intervention so that issues did not get bigger down the line.  The Wiltshire Learning Alliance (WLA) had launched in 2021 and school improvement was championed by himself, Cllr Laura Mayes as Cabinet Member and Helean Hughes as Director.  Dominic felt that school improvement was crucial that all children were supported with the key point of the WLA being that the closer teams stand together, the better they work together to improve the lives of children and school’s performance.  Dominic wished to assure Schools Forum that from Cabinet down they understood the importance of school improvement and would provide school improvement support for as long as schools require it.

The Chair reported that she had spoken to Georgina Keily-Theobald (maintained special school representative) prior to the meeting who valued the school improvement service and felt strongly that she wished to support the proposal for de-delegation of school improvement services.

The Chair of Primary Heads Forum[DG1] [DG2]  confirmed that there was an interesting response to the PHF consultation and that no schools wanted the budget to be top sliced but the majority agreed that some kind of school improvement service is needed.  On that basis PHF members would support the proposal of a top slice to top up the 50% of funding that was being withdraw by the DfE to ensure there was 100% of school improvement funding for the 2022-23 year but would wish for this decision to be reviewed for the 2023-24 year.

Resolved: That Schools Forum

1. Note the outcome from the DfE’s consultation and the local consultation responses in relation to the School Improvement Services for the 2022-23 financial year.

2. Agree to de-delegate funding in support of School Improvement Services being provided for the 2022-23 year.  (This decision was made later in the meeting under Agenda item 9).