Agenda item

This report sets out the proposed DSG Schools Budget for 2023/24 for consultation and agreement by Schools Forum ahead of the Council budget being set and approved by full Council in February 2023.

Olufunke Adediran, Head of Finance at Brent Council, introduced the report that set out the proposed Schools Budget for 2023/24 for consultation and agreement from the Schools Forum ahead of the Council budget being approved by full Council in February 2023. The following key points were brought to the Forum’s attention:

·       The Forum was advised that the report focused primarily on the Schools Block, as a separate report had been provided for the Early Years Block, with the High Needs Block due to be a focal point at the February 2023 Schools Forum.

·       The Forum heard that following the announcement in the 2022 Autumn Statement that the core schools’ budget would increase by £2.3bn over the next two financial years, it materialised that the actual allocation would be £2bn as the announcement had included £0.3bn for the Health and Social Care Levy which had since been abolished.

·       In the 2023/24 financial year mainstream schools would be allocated additional funding through the mainstream schools’ additional grant (MSAG), this would be in addition to schools’ allocations made through the schools National Funding Formula (NFF). The MSAG additional funding was only applicable to state funded mainstream schools.

·       Brent was estimated to receive £8.5m of funding in total for primary and secondary maintained schools and academies, free schools and city technology colleges. The school level allocations of the MSAG for 2023/24 financial year would be published in May 2023.

·       The additional funding received in 2022/23 through the schools’ supplementary grant (SSG) to reflect the costs of the Health and Social Care levy and other costs pressures had been rolled up into the 2023/34 National Funding Formula (NFF) for the 5 to 16 year old element of the grant.

·       Pupil premium funding had increased by 5% for 2023/24 to £1,385 for Primary aged pupils, £985 for Secondary aged pupils and £2,410 for LAC pupils and care leavers.

·       The Forum was directed to Table 1 in Section 4.3 of the report that laid out the break down of the DSG Funding Allocations per block that illustrated an increase in all blocks with the exception of the Central Block which would see a small decrease as a result of planned annual reductions against historic pension costs of centrally employed teachers.

·       Although the increased funding to the High Needs Block (HNB) was welcomed by the Forum, it was also recognised that the increased funding would be insufficient to cover the cost pressures incurred from the rising EHCP costs and deficit, as such a request was made to Schools Forum to request 0.5% transfer from the Schools Block as per the report recommendations.

·       The Forum was advised that the de-delegations for maintained schools to agree remained mainly in line with the previously agreed de-delegated items as shown in Table 3, Section 6.2 of the report. Minor adaptions included increasing the pot of funding to support schools that were financially struggling to fund redundancies to £200k.

·       Following the DfE consultation on changes to the way that the School Improvement Monitoring and Brokering Grant would be funded from 2022/23. The consultation proposed that there would be a phased removal of the grant over the course of financial year 2022/23 following which all council school improvement activity, including core improvement activities, would be funded via de-delegation. Schools Forum had initially been informed in January 2022 that the local authority would cover the cost of the 50% reduction in grant funding in 2022/23, however as the grant was no longer available from 2023/24 onwards, it was proposed to de-delegate £0.109m for school improvement services to schools to continue to support the functions of the Setting and School Improvement Service.

·       Proposed contributions towards Trade unions, maternity and paternity cover remained the same as the current financial year.

·       The Forum was advised that the Growth Fund that funded increases in pupil numbers, as well as the Choice Advice and Fair Access Interview (CAFAI) projects for children who had newly arrived in the UK and required additional educational support was expected to overspend by £0.3m due to rising pupil numbers, mainly within the Secondary phase. It was therefore proposed to increase the current growth budget to £2.8m to fund the projected growth in pupil numbers in 2023/24. This also included an allocation to fund a secondary bulge class as approved by Forum in November 2022.

·       In relation to the progressive steps being taken to move to the National Funding Formula (NFF) the Forum’s attention was drawn to Appendix A which provided information on the funding factor rates used to set the 2023/24 Schools Budgets, followed by Appendix B which provided a breakdown of each of the School Level Allocations 23/34.

·       The Forum were updated that following the DfE’s announcement that from 2024/25 a standardised formula would be used to calculate the funding for schools with split sites to ensure consistency across all local authorities, one Brent school had been identified as potentially being significantly impacted by the funding changes, however the final design of the split site formula for 2024/25 remained in consultation therefore more accurate financial figures were not expected to be available until the June 2023 Schools Forum.

·       The Forum’s attention was drawn to Table 4, Section 9.6 of the report that showed the breakdown of the split site funding for affected schools for 2023/24.

The Chair thanked Olufunke Adediran for sharing the report before offering the Forum the opportunity to ask any questions they had. The following key points were discussed:

·             The Forum sought clarification as to whether the 10% funding increase to the High Needs Block (HNB) in 23/24 would cascade down to increased funding for Special Schools and if Special Schools would receive the Minimum Funding Guarantee of 3.4% in line with all Top-Up Funding Bands in 2023/24. Officers advised that final funding allocations for Special Schools and Pupil Referral Unit’s would be shared in full at the February 2023 meeting of the Schools Forum, however it was confirmed that the Government had stipulated the breakdown of how the minimum funding guarantee of 3.4% should be used.

·             The Forum felt that it would be helpful to see the criteria that schools were required to meet in order to request support from the Schools Facing Financial Difficulties Fund (SFFD), officers agreed to take this action forward.

·             A discussion was had in relation to the amount of money that schools were contributing to the School Improvement Monitoring and Brokering Grant, particularly in relation to schools that would receive very light support from the local authority despite contributing to the pot of money, additionally it was queried what the minimum level of support schools should receive. Officers confirmed that it was a decision from central government to remove the grant, subsequently leaving the local authority to maintain the level of support to schools without adequate funding from the government, which had lead to this being funded through de-delegation. The Forum heard that the framework used by the Schools Effectiveness team remained the same in identifying which schools required support and what different support looked like in practice for different schools, with some schools requiring high level targeted support whereas others may only need a light touch including the usual cycle of reviews.

·             In relation to the additional de-delegated funds allocated to support financially struggling schools with redundancies the Forum queried how much money was forecast to be saved long term for schools benefitting from the funds against the potential ongoing burden to the DSG. Officers advised that this would be explored further as an action to take forward, whereby the redundancy costs would be tracked alongside a summary of how much schools had saved as a result of the support received from the fund. The feedback would be shared at a future Schools Forum meeting.

The Chair thanked members for their contributions to the discussion on the report and noted the following Action Points to be taken forward:

Action point 83 - The Forum felt that it would be helpful to see the criteria that schools were required to meet in order to request support from the Schools Facing Financial Difficulties Fund (SFFD), officers agreed to take this action forward to support transparency.

Action Point 84 – A track of the redundancy costs requested and the savings those schools struggling financially have achieved as a result of the support received from the redundancy pot, to be reported at the June Schools Forum to support monitoring the benefits of having a redundancy pot.

Having established that Forum members had no further questions or comments in relation to the report, the Forum RESOLVED to:

(1)            In line with 2022/23 to approve the transfer of (0.5%) £1.3m from the Schools Block to support the High Needs Block. Department for Education (DfE) regulations permits that up to 0.5% of the Schools Block funding can be transferred with Forum approval.

(2)            To note the additional funding allocations to Brent, as mentioned in the Government’s Spending Review 2021 and Autumn Statement 2022.

(3)            To endorse the 2023/24 budget for the DSG Blocks, including the mainstream funding formula, to Full Council for approval.

(4)            To note the DfE’s update on split site funding effective from 2024/25.

The Chair the invited the Maintained School members represented on the Forum to consider the proposed de-delegation arrangements and as a result they RESOLVED to approve the proposed de-delegation arrangements, as set out within section 6 of the report, including the proposal to fund redundancy costs for school based staff from the de-delegated contingencies budget and the proposal to de-delegate funds from schools to make provisions for the local authority to continue to support school improvement activities.