Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone, especially Chris Munday, Barnet’s Commissioning Director for Children with the statutory duty of Director of Children’s Services.  At the end of the meeting he extended the members’ thanks to Kate Webster for her work with the Schools Forum and wished her a happy retirement.

Apologies were received from Patricia French (St Mary’s High) and Matthew Glenn (St Mary’s & St John’s)

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Agreed as a true record

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a)    Report on Schools Budget and Funding Formulae

b)    School balances

Item 6a – 2016/17 Budget – Schools budget and funding formula

Ian Harrison (IH) introduced the paper published in advance, summarising the main points which dealt with the Barnet schools funding formula and arrangements for SEN and alternative provision (AP).  He recapped the general funding principles and the limitations imposed by the minimum funding guarantee (MFG) capping system.  Early years is not covered since it was felt better to wait until the government reports on the results of its consultation on the funding  of provision for 3 and 4 year olds and delivery of 30 hours childcare for working parents.

The funding formula for mainstream schools and academies is required to be reviewed each year.  As part of this Barnet looked at schools struggling financially to see if they could be helped by a change in the formula but  there seems to be no way to help all or even most of these schools because the Minimum Funding Guarantee and the cap on gains mean only some schools struggling financially can be helped and even then others might be worse off.  The overriding considerations are that the overall funding cannot increase as the government has frozen the funding rate per pupil, and that any increase must be sustainable over the coming years when pressures on the growth fund will increase.  Three options have been proposed for consultation with all schools:

1.       No change in the formula

2.       A change in the capping method to allow schools to retain 20% of the value of gains

3.       An increase in the AWPU of £10 and capping to retain 15% of gains.

The council wishes to hear schools views on the proposals and is open to other ideas which could be modelled.

Carol Beckman (CB) further explained the effect of the MFG and capping system within which we must work, using the schematic diagrams below.

This chart illustrates the variation between schools’ funding per pupil before 2013/14 (red dotted line) and afterwards when a new formula had to be introduced under new government principles (blue solid line).  Schools below the minimum funding guarantee (-1½% -lower orange line parallel with the dotted line) receive top-up funding (green shading).  Schools gaining more than +½% (green line parallel and above the dotted line) lose all funding above that (red shaded area).  Schools fall into 5 categories as below. 

In 2015/16, 8 schools neither gained nor lost, 15 gained but were not capped (blue) and 20 lost but were not topped up (green).  28 schools lost but were protected by the minimum funding guarantee (purple), the highest top-up of which was over £950K.  43 schools gained but were capped (red), the highest cap being nearly £400K.

It is not possible to improve the position of the schools on the MFG unless they are very near the threshold.  These schools are on a downward trend in funding per pupil year on year, but it will take very many years before they reach the ‘correct’ funding level.  Schools on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

It was agreed to add an additional item after item 8 to discuss early years funding.  This would be skipped if no government announcements had been made by the time of the meeting.

Jo Djora (DJ) asked for clarity about an amount in the schools budget of £298K labelled ‘Teachers in Children’s Centres’.  She said that under the new locality structure this money would be used for the childcare managers, even though many children’s centres do not offer childcare.  IH said the money was to ensure all children are school ready when they go into reception.

GK asked about training for schools forum members.  CB said training was planned for September, to be delivered by internal staff.  GK said it would be good to have someone independent as there had been previously.

GK wished everyone a good summer.