Agenda item

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

The Forum noted the following key points as part of the update provided:

·             The forecast Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficit was estimated at £2.1m to the year end 2022/23. The illustrated a £0.1m reduction compared to the position reported to Schools Forum in November 2022.

·             Table 1 in Section 4 of the report summarised the position of each of the DSG Blocks. The Schools Block reflected a pressure of £0.5m due to pressures against the growth funds that provided funding to schools when there were increased pupil numbers and an increased demand from schools to fund redundancy costs as a result of re-structures necessary due to falling rolls.

·             The High Needs Block carried a forecast overspend of £2.8m due to the continued rise in demand for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP’s) with an increasing complexity of need and rising costs of out of borough placements, the Forum noted this reflected a national trend as detailed in Table 2, section 6.3 of the report.

·             A deficit management plan was in place to recover the deficit in the long term, this would also be supported by the Delivering Better Value (DBV) in SEND programme, although the funding received via the DBV programme would not be used to directly add funds to mitigate the deficit, it was noted that efficiencies identified during the programme coupled with the longer term recovery actions and anticipated funding increases would aid a reduction in the deficit. The Forum would receive an update on the DBV programme at a future meeting.

·             The Early Years Block was forecast to underspend by £1.0m, this was mainly due to an in year adjustment from the DfE to the EY Block funding in July 2022 which saw an increase of £1.2m due to an increase in take up hours seen in the January 2022 census. The Forum noted that the DfE was expected to make a further adjustment to the 2022/23 funding allocation based on the January 2023 census data, therefore it was proposed that this forecast underspend would be retained in reserves to mitigate the impact of any clawback due from the DfE following confirmation of the final funding position in July 2023.

·             The Central Block forecasted an underspend of £0.2m due to in year vacancies.

·             The Forum’s attention was drawn to Section 9.1 of the report that responded to Action Point 82 and confirmed that Brent was funded at an inner London scale to provide inner London salaries to teaching staff in Brent using an area cost adjustment in the National Funding Formula (NFF).

·             The Forum’s attention was drawn to Section 9.2 of the report that responded to Action Point 83 to advise the Forum of the criteria that schools were required to meet to be eligible for support from the Schools Facing Financial Difficulties Fund (SFFD).

In concluding the discussion, the Chair asked the Forum if they had any questions or comments on the report presented, the following points were discussed:

·             The Forum were grateful for the response to Action Point 83 as detailed in Section 9.2 of the report in relation to transparency of the eligibility criteria for schools to receive support from the SFFD, however it was felt that the response related more to schools facing effectiveness difficulties, as it was noted that schools would only be considered if they were in a Rapid Improvement Group (RIG) and only in exceptional circumstances would a non RIG school application for support be considered. The Forum requested to know how many schools that were not in a RIG  had submitted a request for support and how many were granted.

·             Concerns were raised that despite the response provided from the DfE in relation to Action Point 82 it was felt that there was still a discrepancy in the level of funding schools received that left schools with a significant shortfall in funding to make up from their budgets to afford to pay teachers’ salaries at an inner London PayScale. It was queried how much the calculation from the DfE had been impacted by the historical data that was used, additionally the Forum queried if the DfE undertook revised calculations using up to date data, if it was found that there should have been increased funding, would schools be able to claim that back from central government. In response the Forum were advised that the funding formula used in the area cost adjustment was complex, the DfE were aware that their data was out of date and steps were being taken to use more recent data. The Forum was advised that it was highly unlikely that any funding would be backdated if it was found that a revised calculation with up to date data supported increased funding and there was always the possibility that revised calculations could result in decreased funding in the future.

·             Following a query raised by the Forum in relation to the pressures incurred from maternity and paternity payments, it was confirmed that these payments represented a small cost pressure of only £7k against the Schools Block.

Councillor Grahl, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People & Schools updated the Forum that some of the budgetary pressures highlighted in relation to the High Needs Block were being responded to with through proposals within the Council Budget that were due for approval at Full Council on 23 February  2023.  These included significant capital investment in SEND provision placements for over 400 children in the Borough including the new SEND school proposed in Wembley.

The Chair thanked members for their contributions to the discussion on the report and the Forum RESOLVED to note the contents of the report and the following Action Points to be taken forward:

Action point 86 –

The Forum would receive an update on the DBV programme at a future meeting.

Action Point 87 –

The Forum to receive further information in relation to how many schools that were not in Rapid Improvement Groups (RIG’s) had submitted requests for support and how many had been granted.