Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence received.

The Chair updated members on a number of changes to the Schools Forum membership. Cassie Lloyd Perrin was welcomed as newly appointed member to the Forum as a Maintained School Primary Governor, additionally Jo Jhally, Andy Prindiville, Martin Beard and Gerard McKenna had all agreed to a further term of office with the Schools Forum. A resignation had been received from Schools Forum member Narinder Nathan, the Forum extended their best wishes to Narinder Nathan and thanked her for her service to the Schools Forum. The Forum were advised that Danny Coyle had taken up a role has a head teacher in a different borough so would cease to be a member of the Brent Schools Forum.

The Forum was advised that vacancies would be addressed in the next round of Schools Forum elections in the New Year.

None.

None.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 June 2022 as a correct record.

It was RESOLVED to approve the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16^th June 2022 as a correct record.

To consider any actions arising from previous meetings.

None.

This item, to be presented by the Department for Education’s (DfE) programme delivery partner Newton Europe, seeks to inform Schools Forum of how the Delivering Better Value (DBV) in SEND diagnostic phase will work in Brent as well as meeting the wider objective to identify local and national opportunities to improve the outcomes for children and young people with SEND.

Roseanne Furniss from Newton Europe, the Department for Education’s (DFE) programme delivery partner was welcomed by the Chair who he advised had been invited to attend to share an overview of how the Delivering Better Value (DBV) in SEND diagnostic phase would work in Brent as well as meeting the wider objective to identify local and national opportunities to improve the outcomes for children and young people with SEND.

The Committee heard that the context of the DBV in SEND Programme was to address the recognised challenges in providing SEN Services, particularly with regards to the underlying funding challenges. The programme would seek to explore how funding could be most effectively used to ensure that better outcomes for children and young people with SEN were achieved. The four cornerstones to consider in achieving improvements were recognised as taking a child/young person centred approach; actively listening to those receiving support from the system; collaborating with key partners including service users and their families and exploring the issues around funding to ensure that funding that was available was used efficiently to ensure maximum impact. The Forum heard that the DBV programme aimed to design its support through providing short term help to Local Authorities to identify sustainable changes that could drive high quality outcomes and assist in building an evidence-based grant application to support the implementation of the changes. Parallel to this the DBV Programme sought to inform long term reform by collecting the objective evidence base from participating authorities to inform future policy, drive legislative changes and share best practice.

The Forum were advised that Brent were currently at Module 1 of the 3 module grant application process, Module 1 included an understanding of Brent’s historic and current position in SEN support and consideration of future SEN provision, identifying themes from the baselines and forecasts at this stage would support Module 2 which focused on exploring the main drivers of challenges specific to Brent. Module 3 required further exploration on the cultural and behavioural changes that would require adaptation in order to improve outcomes. At this stage in the application process Local Authorities should have a clear evidence base that would inform how the grant would be used ahead of the final stage of the process of making the grant application.

The Chair thanked Rosanna Furniss for introducing the item before offering Forum members the opportunity to seek further details or clarify any questions they had. Forum members raised questions regarding the level and frequency of funding, timescales and stakeholder involvement, with the following responses provided:

·                In response to a Forum query regarding the level and frequency of funding it was confirmed that each Local Authority participating would be given £45k to support the grant and application phase of the programme, this would be followed up by the grant of up to £1m which would be awarded as a one off payment to kick start the plans created throughout the grant application process. There would be no additional funding available following  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

This report provides Schools Forum with an update on the forecast financial position for 2022/23. The position is reported against the budget set in consultation with Schools Forum and submitted to the Department for Education (DfE) on the Section 251 budget return. 

Olufunke Adediran, Head of Finance at Brent Council, introduced the report for the Forum to note that provided an update on the forecast financial position for 2022/2023, with the following key points shared:

·                The increased demand for High Needs (HN) provision was forecast to lead to the overall Dedicated School Grant (DSG) expenditure exceeding income by £2.2m in 2022/23, resulting in a forecast cumulative deficit of £17.3m by the end of the current financial year. This was mainly due to the increasing number of children and young people with Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) that had risen by 8% since last year.

·                The £2.2m deficit against the HN Block had also been adversely affected by the increased forecast of costs at in-borough mainstream schools, academies and special schools and independent day special schools, as well as out-of-borough special schools. The forecast also included an increase in expenditure relating to £0.3m to be recouped from the HN Block and allocated to other local authorities for out of borough placements, following an adjustment by the DfE in July 2022.

·                The pressures against the HN Block would be further offset by £1.9m underspends identified as part of the HNB Management Plan to review and realign costs that had been funded from the DSG but which could be funded by the DSG. Actions taken to alleviate the pressures included £1m contribution towards the costs of children placed in independent Residential Care Children’s Homes and other education related costs for Looked After Children to be funded from the Placements budgets via the General Fund and a contribution of £0.9m towards transport costs for SEN children.

·                The Early Years Block funding allocation had increased by £1.3m following the completion of the January 2022 census as a result of an expected increase in take up of the 3 and 4 year old entitlement and a small increase in take-up of the 2 year old entitlement. There would also be a reduction to the supplementary nursery grant, consideration was being given to how this reduction would be contained within the Early Years Block with the Forum being updated on this at a future Schools Forum meeting.

·                The Central Block of the DSG (£2.1m) that funded central services for schools, including the long-term commitment towards pension strain costs for former school employees of £0.4m was forecast to break even.

·                The outline position in relation to High Needs Block, Early Years Block and Central Block would be subject to ongoing monitoring and updated to future Forum meetings.

The Forum were then invited to raise questions on the report, with the following queries raised:

·                Members sought further details on the increased pressured on the High Needs Block in relation to the high costs of the children placed in provision outside of the borough. Officers clarified that costs had not increased, however a deep dive would be undertaken in this area to better reflect the breakdown of expenditure in this area as it remained a costly expenditure for the Council.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

This report informs Schools Forum of the provisional DSG block funding allocations announced for 2023/24.

Folake Olufeko, Senior Finance Analyst, Brent Council, introduced the report to inform the Schools Forum of the provisional DSG block funding allocations announced for 2023/24. The Forum were asked to note the 2023/24 allocations that would form the basis of further detailed work to allocate funding to individual schools and settings at the January and February 2023 meetings, once final funding was confirmed.

Key points from the report were shared as follows:

·                High needs and central schools services blocks would increase by 2.7% nationally, equating to. £1.4 billion in 2023/24. However, London would see an overall increase of 2.4%.

·                In Brent, the overall Schools Block funding would increase by £2.964 million in 2023/24, representing a 1.16% increase. This was lower than the national percentage increase of 1.9% and lower than the average of 1.6% for Local Authorities (LAs) in London when compared to 2022/23 based on pupil numbers driving the allocation of funding. Primary pupil numbers had been declining across London and in Brent, resulting in lower DSG allocations. The funding floor would ensure that every school was allocated at least 0.5% more pupil-led funding per pupil compared to the 2022/23 allocation.

·                The minimum per pupil funding levels would increase by 3%, compared to 2022/23. This would ensure that next year every primary school would receive at least £4,405 per pupil and every secondary school at least £5,715. These amounts were still lower than the Brent 2022/23 average under the Local Funding Formula (LFF) of £5,508 for primary and £6,900 for secondary.

·                A further consultation, which closed in September 2022, focused on the implementation of the direct National Funding Formula (NFF) and the outcome of the consultation was expected to be published by December 2022. There were a number of proposals and those relevant to Brent included proposals in relation to the transfer of funds between blocks, to introduce some flexibility to allow local authorities to continue to have the option to implement transfers, particularly from the Schools Block to the High Needs Block and the determination of notional budgets for mainstream schools’ SEND support within the NFF.

·                The High Needs Block (HNB) would also see an increase of £570 million nationally, which represented a 6.4% increase compared to 2022/23. The NFF would ensure that every local authority received an increase of at least 5% per head of population, compared to 2022/23, and no more than 7%. Brent would receive the minimum increase of 5% equating to £3.5 million. This was below the London average of 5.8%. A key factor that had contributed to this outcome was changing demographic trends. As London was experiencing a low percentage increase in population, it would receive low percentage increases across various funding factors such as Free School Meals and population funding.  The additional £3.5 million was lower than the funding increase received in the past few years and was unlikely to be sufficient to cover the current 2022/23 forecasted imbalance between the High Needs expenditure and income and fund any further increases  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Shirley Parks, Interim Director, Safeguarding Performance and Strategy, Brent Council, advised that Schools Admissions were currently experiencing a high number of in year admissions for pupils in Year 10 and 11 who had moved to the borough from within the UK which had created pressure on school places,. The Forum was informed that some schools who had the physical capacity may be asked to take on bulge classes to accommodate the increased pupil numbers, with funding being allocated from the Rising Rolls Fund to support the staffing costs to accommodate the additional classes. The Forum was advised that this would also be factored into the budget for 23/24 going forward.

In noting the update provided, the Forum recognised the necessity to ask some schools to take on a bulge class, whilst also noting that where schools experienced a stream of high mobility it was important to consider on a larger scale the most effective support that could be offered when pupils entered a new school and how they could be supported when potentially moving on, both from a financial perspective for the schools and the lived experience of the pupil.