Agenda item

The Director of Education and Learning, Ian Harrison, presented the report and summarised the implementation of the authority’s funding formula as well as expenditure of balances carried forward.

An underspend of £4.959m was forecasted by the end of the financial year, resulting from an underspend in growth funding. A portion of that money would be spent on secondary schools, high needs provision, early years and migrant support.

The need for additional resources in nursery schools leading to long term financial issues would be alleviated by the lump sum of £100,000. 

Schools receiving Hong Kong migrant children would be paid pro-rata for the time the child was in school. This year, no funding had been provided to schools that incurred additional costs for asylum seeking children. Therefore, some of the underspend funding go towards those schools next year.

Members queried the coping mechanisms for Moss Hall that reported a deficit of over £150,000.  It was noted that the payout based on the funding formula would mitigate long term financial risks and any additional funding would need to be raised from the school’s recovery plan.

Approximately 200 Hong Kong and asylum seeking children were in need of education in the last three months alone.

RESOLVED that the Children, Education & Safeguarding Committee:

-Notes the annual report on school funding in Barnet.

-Approves the formula funding to be used in the Authority Proforma Tool (which specifies the authority’s funding formula for schools) on the basis of paragraphs 1.26 to 1.35, which includes a Minimum Funding Guarantee of +2.0%, which means that every primary and secondary school will receive an increase in funding per pupil of at least this percentage in 2022/23, (through the pupil-led element of the schools funding formula), while any schools gaining from the introduction of the National Funding Formula will not have their gains capped.

-Authorises the Executive Director, Children’s Services to approve the final Authority Proforma Tool for submission to the DfE.

-Notes that the overall Schools Budget will be considered by the Policy and Resources Committee at its next meeting on 9th February 2022 for onward submission to full council as part of the budget setting process.

-Recommends to Council that any changes to the Schools Budget reasonably required as a result of the final 2022/23 Dedicated Schools Grant and Post-16 settlement are delegated for decision to the Executive Director, Children’s Services in consultation with the Director of Finance.

-Approves in principle the proposal to pay a lump sum of £100,000 to each of Barnet’s maintained nursery schools using carried forward underspend from the Dedicated Schools Grant to fund this and authorise the Executive Director, Children’s Services to consult early years settings and the Schools Forum on this proposal and then to decide on whether the proposal should be  implemented in the light of consultation responses and in consultation with the Chairman of the Children, Education and Safeguarding Committee.

-Approves the proposal set out in paragraphs 1.50 to 1.60 in principle to

 provide up to £1.0 million of funding, from carried forward Dedicated Schools Grant underspend, to support schools with additional costs arising from the enrolment of children of newly-arrived Hong Kong families and children of asylum seeker families living in designated asylum seeker hotels after the October census date during the school year 2021-22 and authorise the Executive Director, Children’s Services to consult with the Schools Forum and to make final decisions on the methodology for allocating the funding and allocation of the carried forward funding to eligible schools for one year only.