Issue - meetings

RESOLVED:

1.               That the 2016/17 funding formula for Surrey schools be prepared on the basis of:

(i)       continuing the £10 million transfer of Dedicated Schools Grant from the notional Schools block to the High Needs block first introduced in 2015/16

(ii)      transferring an additional £1.65 million from the Schools block to the High Needs Block and

iii)   transferring £1.65 million from the County Council to the DSG High Needs Block.”  

2.        That the Cabinet approves the recommendation of the Schools Forum to reduce schools’ deprivation funding to 7.79% of total schools’ formula funding in 2016/17

3.        That the proposed Surrey formula factors for 2016/17 as set out in Annex 4 are approved for submission to the DfE by the 30 October deadline

4.         That authority is delegated to the Assistant Director, Schools & Learning, in conjunction with the Leader and the Cabinet Member for Schools, Skills and Educational Achievement to update and amend the formula as appropriate following receipt of the DSG settlement and updated DfE pupil data in December 2015. This is to ensure that total allocations to schools under this formula remain affordable within the council’s DSG settlement to be announced during December 2015.

Reasons for Decisions:

To ensure that spending on crucial Special Educational Needs services is maintained despite the vote of the majority of schools responding to the County Council’s September 2015 funding consultation, and the subsequent decision of Schools Forum only to recommend a transfer of £10m from the Schools Block to the High Needs Block. Decisions on the proposed Surrey schools funding formula are required in order to comply with DfE regulations requiring notification of the council’s funding formula by 30 October 2015.

[The decision on this item may be called in by the Education & Skills Scrutiny Board]

The Cabinet Member for Schools, Skills and Educational Achievement began by saying that in each of the past 4 years when she had presented the schools funding formula report, it had been a process that involved the complex figures that make up schools funding being understood, and with the combined support of Schools Forum and Surrey Officers, the recommendations had been approved after a brief discussion.

She went on to state that this year’s report on proposals for the Schools’ Formula Funding for 2016/17 was quite different and had been arrived at after a great deal of debate and consideration by both the schools community and officers and there had been and still was a large measure of disagreement between schools on 2 key areas of the funding formula which were covered in the report, the level of Deprivation funding and the extra special educational needs funding allocated from the Dedicated Schools Grant which the Department for Education (DfE) made to Surrey schools.

She referred Members to the pack of consolidated responses from schools to the Funding Consultation in September reminded them that they had also been copied or had sight of correspondence from many schools, which included those on both sides of the Deprivation Funding debate.

She provided the following information:

·        The Dedicated Schools Grant for general schools funding, totalled £583 million with £49 million for Early Years. 

·        The High Needs Block of £127 million funded pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and other SEND support services. 

·        That Surrey spent quite highly on special educational needs for a variety of largely historic reasons, and accepted that the Council had been slow to implement programmes to bring down this spending. 

·        That the £127 million High Needs Block was frozen by the DfE last year and Schools Forum agreed to transfer £10 million to it from the general Schools funding for 2015/16.

She went on to say that whilst it had been expected that this additional £10 million of funding could be reduced for 2016/17, the consultation document circulated to all schools last month requested a transfer of £13.3 million next year to the High Needs block, net of £2.2 million of planning savings that would be made, as a result of demographic growth, inflation, and changes in the entitlement of young people aged 16-25 with special educational needs.  She said that the consultation document had also suggested cuts which would need to be made to SEN support services if Schools Forum did not agree to the additional transfer for 2016/17 and also asked schools to suggest services which they would be prepared to see cut back although no such proposals were in fact received. 

She referred Members to the proposed savings needed to maintain the additional level of funding from schools at £10 million which were set out in the submitted report and said that these covered a range of important special needs support services, particularly the special schools outreach service which was accessed by around 200  ...  view the full minutes text for item 195