Agenda item

The report of Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) seeks to update Schools Forum regarding the content of the DfE’s operational guidance on High Needs funding for the 2021/22 year.

Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) referred to the report which outlined the content of the DfE’s operational guidance on High Needs funding for the 2021/22 year.  Marie highlighted the following:

·       Updates to funding rates are usually announced late in the autumn but it was good to receive news of the allocation in July this year and this was an uplift of £5.5 million which was really welcomed;

·       The DfE had also confirmed that they have a limited budget to support those LA’s with the largest proportional deficits – Wiltshire had been assessed as being 66^th on the list and for this year the top 6 LA’s were receiving support.  We hope that the additional funding would help with the historic deficit and that will be ongoing and that we may move up the list to receive further support; and

·       Any LA with an overall deficit on its DSG reserve at the end of the 2019/20 financial year must present a plan to the DfE for managing their future DSG spend, moving away from the expectation that there should be a balanced position within 3 years;

·       The DfE had designed a management plan template to help LA’s develop evidence based and strategic plans covering the provision available for children and young people with SEND.  This was a good tool to manage the issues and would be shared at the next meeting of the Forum and regularly thereafter.

The Chair asked if the list of LA’s that were in deficit was a published document as he would be interested to find out about the other LA’s on the list to find out if they were local to Wiltshire and may be in a position to share any experiences/knowledge.  Gemma Donnelly (DfE) confirmed that the document was not currently published as it was currently based on the draft LA’s accounts – the final accounts were pushed back because of Covid.

The Chair felt that the deficit list reemphasised that high needs is underfunded if the deficits to the DSG are because of high needs and that we are amongst many others LA’s in the same position and it would be useful to know who they are to see if there could be some learning from statistical neighbours etc as to why they are in the position they are in.  Gemma reported that the management plan that had been referred to earlier would contain the details of statistical and geographic neighbours so that should be useful for your focus and see who you might partner with and show you were you sit with your outliers.

Gemma reported that there were also a number of LA’s working well within high needs budgets and some having surpluses but accepted that it is harder to turn around a position of deficit than to continue to maintain a surplus budget.

The Chair responded that he felt it still comes down to the original point that it is “the size of the tanker (ours was very small in the first place) and to then have to take extra load means it is much harder to sail”.  He would still push it back and felt that it would be useful to find out from those LA’s that do have surplus balances to see if their percentage of spend against their income and their needs maybe we could learn from them.

Gemma confirmed that her department were looking at that and that it is not always about a financial thing – as she could see from Wiltshire’s recovery plan it has been acknowledged that it is also about culture and systemic change within the authority.

Marie reported that the F40 group had circulated a questionnaire and other authorities were continuing to collate information and so there would be other “unofficial data” which could inform some of our planning whilst we wait for the information to be shared by the DfE.

Marie reported that during the very useful meeting held with Gemma she highlighted that we may want to consider the marketing of the LA’s provision in a positive way and speaking to adults who had previously used our own special school provision, but overall it was reassuring to hear that Gemma thought that we were taking the right actions/making the right approaches.

Resolved:

That Schools Forum note the report.