Agenda item

Chris Munday, Executive Director of Children’s and Family Services,  presented the report relating to school funding arrangements including maintained nurseries. Recent challenges received a response from Government to fund and sustain nurseries in the Borough as well as an increase in allowance for childcare.

Chris Munday thanked Members for all the work Members had contributed to the positive outcome.

In response to Members, Neil Marlow explained there was no way of redistributing funding and that schools received their funding based on the national funding formula. It was noted that the projected reserves in school budgets at the end of Quarter 3 had reduced significantly. Therefore, many schools were expected to be in deficit, going forward, due to financial difficulties.

It was noted that schools were being supported through monthly finance briefings on how to manage their budget and ways to deal with increasing challenges. 

RESOLVED that the Children, Education & Safeguarding Committee:

1.    Note the approved formula funding to be used in the Authority Proforma Tool (which specifies the authority’s funding formula for schools) as set out and agreed at the Schools Forum on 12 January 2023

2.    Note the approved final Authority Proforma Tool for submission to the Department for Education (DfE).

3.    Note the recommendation of the proposed use of Direct Schools Grant (DSG) reserves of £0.75m for funding for new arrivals and £1.0m for therapies for children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP).

4.    Note that the Early Years funding allocation is estimated using pupil data taken from the Early Years and Schools census in January 2022. The final allocation will be updated in July 2023 based on the January 2023 census numbers and as set out and agreed at Schools Forum on 12 January 2023

·         The hourly rate received by Barnet for 3- and 4-year-olds has increased from £6.24 to £6.41.

·         The proposal to increase the passthrough basic hourly rate for 3 and 4 year olds by £0.42 to from £5.45 to £5.87.

·         The proposal that the deprivation rate based on IDACI is increased by £0.01 from £0.29 to £0.30 per hour, therefore passing on the increase from the government directly to providers.

·         The DfE funding rate for 2-year-olds has been increased by £0.63 and the proposal to pass this increase on to providers, thus increasing the rate from £6.29 an hour in 2022-23 to £6.92 an hour in 2023-24.

·         From April 2023, funding for Maintained Nursery Schools is included within the Early Years Block. Each part-time equivalent is funded at £3.80 per hour and the proposal to pass this funding onto our Maintained Nursery Schools in full.

5.    Note that the Provisional High Needs funding allocation as set out and agreed at Schools Forum in January has been calculated as follows:

·         £65.334m - Actual High Needs National Funding Formula allocation

·         £4.509m - based on a £5,200.81 per pupil Area Cost Adjustment (ACA) weighted base rate *867 (pupils in special schools/special academies based on the October 2022 census)

·         £0.756m - Import/export adjustment for net 75 imported pupils

·         £0.306m – Additional High Needs Funding for Special Free School

·         £0.918m – hospital education and teachers’ pay and pension