Agenda and minutes

Ben Thomas and Joanne Kelly.

SH welcomed NM to the meeting as the Chief Executive designate for BELS.  He also welcomed Ndenko Asong to his first meeting as LBB Finance Manager, DSG.

None.  New members welcome NA and NM.

The Minutes from the 13 January 2022 were agreed as accurate.

There were no matters arising.

NA introduced the paper. 

DSG balances of £3.4m had been brought forward from 2020-21.  The DSG allocation after recoupment for 2021-22 is sitting at £240.7m. The paper showed changes across the year, including an increase in the High Needs Block of £258,000 from import/export adjustments and an adjustment for early years pupil numbers from the January 2022 census, which resulted in a DSG reduction of £910,000.  Overall, there has been a net reduction of DSG funding of £653,000.

The Schools Block has seen an underspend of £2.741m on the Growth Fund and an overspend of £197,000 as a result of increased spending on contingency spending on redundancies.  The Schools Forum has already agreed to make adjustments for this by increasing the dedelegated contingency fund.

There is a forecast underspend of £481,000 in the Early Years budget, but that is likely to be taken back through adjustments in future funding as a result of the reducing number of children in early years.  

The forecast outturn expenditure for 2021-22 is £238.476m, which means that an estimated £2.259m will be carried forward to 2022-23, increasing the total reserve to £5.503m

The Schools Forum noted the 2021-22 DSG monitoring report.

NA introduced the paper. 

The latest published Financial Year 2022-23 DSG allocation for the London Borough of Barnet is £393.945m before recoupment for academies.  The DfE has also announced supplementary funding to boost the schools and high needs blocks and support the increased costs to operations expected due to the introduction of the health and social care levy.  An additional estimated £8.65m of Schools Supplementary Grant funding is expected for the schools block and an estimated £2.45m for the high needs block.

Including the Schools Supplementary Grant income, total DSG for LBB is expected to increase by 6.99% to £405m. The high needs block increases by 12% and the schools block by 7%.  However, there is a decline in the early years block of -3.4%. as a result of the decline in the number of children in Early Years settings.

The report also provided an update on the agreed use of carried forward balances:

·         The lump sum funding of nursery schools for 2022-23 had been approved following a positive response in the consultation with early year providers.

·         The temporary funding supplement of 4 pence an hour for 3- and 4- year-olds was going ahead.

·         The report included an appendix showing the methodology that has been agreed for calculating and processing the funds to schools in respect of migrant children in asylum seeker hotels and from Hong Kong families.

The Schools Forum noted the 2022-23 DSG budget update.

HP Introduced the paper, which showed the projected outturn for different categories of expenditure for 2021-22 and the estimated budget requirements for each category in 2022-23, taking account of the continuing growth in the number of children and young people with Education, Health and Care Plans requiring specialist places in Additional Resource Provisions and Special Schools.  The council is doing a lot to increase local specialist provision in order to reduce the need for placements in the independent sector and outside Barnet.

IK asked what the extra 2.5% of funding for Special Schools from the School Supplementary Grant will be a percentage of, because, if it just applied to top-up rates, it would not represent an overall 2.5% increase.  IH confirmed the intention was to pay an overall increase of 2.5%, so the actual percentage increase in top-up rates would be higher to reflect that.  He said he would clarify this for Special Schools after the meeting.

HP also highlighted the SEN Funding Working Group recommendations. HP had met with several headteachers to discuss funding of children in mainstream schools with complex needs. The hourly funding rates in Barnet were looked at with comparative data for Brent, Harringay and Hertfordshire, which showed that Barnet rates are average, in a mid-position in comparison to other local authorities.

The Working Group had identified pinch points, such as some mainstream schools having children with very complex needs awaiting specialist placements, schools in deficit where funding for EHCPs is 60% or more of the SEN Notional funding and funding needed for pupils with complex needs in the process of getting an EHCP.

It was proposed to set aside £526,774 in the budget for 2022/23 to cover the recommendations.

The Working Group also recommended a change in the wording in Education, Health and Care Plans to enable schools to use their funding more flexibly.

SS pointed out the challenges facing schools where one to one Teacher Assistant support is required for children with high needs, given the hourly cost of TAs. The Working Group had not been able to resolve that.

The Schools Forum noted the report on the expenditure against the High Needs Block 2021/22 and the projected expenditure for 2022/23.

The Schools Forum also agreed the following recommendations of the SEN Funding Working Group:

i)             Fair Share and SEN Notional Funding

Where the funding for EHCPs in a mainstream school is 60% or more of the SEN Notional funding and the school has a deficit budget, the school will be given additional funding.  The amount of funding will be determined by the number of EHCPs and the banded funding rates for the EHCPs, taking account of the school’s SEN Notional funding and deficit budget. 

ii)            Full funding of pupils in mainstream schools awaiting specialist placement

The Working Group have agreed the following criteria:

Funding would be from the term after the specialist placements panel where it is agreed that a specialist placement is appropriate. This is for pupils who have an EHCP and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

HP introduced the paper, which provides the Schools Forum with an update on commissioned places for specialist provision, including places in Additional Resource Provisions in Barnet mainstream schools and places in Special Schools in Barnet.  The report provides some background in terms of the various developments that have taken place over the last year or so. There has been a 22% increase in the number of Education, Health and Care Plans over the past two year, with the main area continuing to be autism. 

The plan to develop a further provision (ARP) at Friern Barnet for secondary aged young people who have needs in relation to cognition and learning builds on the work that has already done with Broadfields Primary School, who now have two ARPs, an ARP for autism and an ARP for cognition learning which opened in September 2021.  The secondary ARP will open in September 2022. 

There are also other key developments happening. One is the expansion of Northway special school through a new annex on the site of Grasvenor Infant Academy, which is expected to close in July. This will provide up to 44 additional specialist places from September 2022 rising to 72 additional places the following year.  The nature of the needs is autism and cognition and learning, and the majority of those additional places from September this year will go to secondary age young people on the current Northway site, while Grasvenor site will provide for younger children. 

There will also be 90 additional places over five years at the Windmill Free Special School which is due to open in September 2023. 

The Schools Forum noted the commissioned high needs places for the 2022/23 school year.

SH thanked IH for his work over several years and wished him well in his retirement.

Noted.