Local Decisions Affecting School
Budgets 2017/18
At the School Forum meeting on 16th January 2017 the members of
the forum voted against the recommendation to transfer the funding of £1.46
million from the Schools Block to the Central Block within the DSG that will
cover the statutory duties provided by the Local Authority (note: this is new
money to the Schools Block, but not new money to the Local Authority as a whole
to support Education).
We have now received
the following adjudication:
The Secretary of
State’s adjudication is to uphold the dis-application request for the authority
to receive the ESG funding of £1.46 million for 2017/18 for retained duties.
As a result, the
Budgets webpage has been updated to show the approved
School Budget Share Calculator. If you have already started your budget
preparation, please review your figures to the new calculator – to ensure the
information is correct.
N.B. FPS has not yet
been updated to reflect the figures for 2017/18, but HCSS are currently working
on this. There will be a follow-up blog entry to confirm both when this is
available (anticipated within the next few days), and any related guidance.
Devon MP's meet with Devon
Association of Primary and Secondary Headteachers
Paul Walker (DAPH Chair) and Matthew Shanks (DASH Co-Ordinator)
met with Devon MP's in Westminster on 22 February 2017 to discuss school
funding issues in Devon. See the press release below that will soon be issued
by MPs:-
Devon MP’s have met
with Devon Association of Primary Head Teachers (DAPH) and Devon Association of
Secondary Head Teachers (DASH) in Westminster to discuss the education funding
formula.
There is broad
consensus among Devon MP’s that the new funding formula under consideration
does not deliver the fair funding that the government has promised. As costs
rise schools need to be properly and fairly funded to give our children the
good education they deserve.
Paul Walker, DAPH
Chair, and Matthew Shanks, DASH co-ordinator, joined Devon MP’s in Westminster
ahead of a meeting with the education Minister Nick Gibb, where they were able
to outline their concerns in person.
Overall, more schools
get more money as opposed to less. However, it is generally the smaller schools
with fewer pupils that receive more funding, whereas the bigger schools with
more pupils get less funding. This means that in fact, 61.9% of pupils attend
schools that lose funding because the majority are schooled at the larger
institutions.
Devon remains in the
bottom 40 local authorities when it comes to education funding with pupils
receiving £290 less per pupil against the national average.
The funding formula
needs changing in order to alleviate some of the pressures by distributing
funding more evenly. One suggestion was reducing the lump sum, which is often
higher for smaller institutions, in order to transfer some money into the per
pupil funding for bigger institutions.
Devon MP’s will
continue to work with DAPH and DASH to lobby the Government and get the best
result.
DAPH and DASH meet with Nick Gibb
MP, Minister of State for School Standards
Paul Walker (DAPH Chair) and Matthew Shanks (DASH Co-Ordinator)
met with Nick Gibb on 22 February 2017 to outline the main concerns around how
the formula has impacted Devon, and that having a formula that disadvantages so
many schools is not good for the County.
Mr Gibb said that
"the government would look to change our proposals where the evidence
shows clearly that the balance needs to shift. We are keen to hear views on
whether we have got that balance right and welcome any additional evidence
through the consultation.”
Share your views
| visit this LINK to the Schools National Funding
Formula (NFF) Consultation which closes on 22 March 2017.
DASH attends All Party Parliamentary
Group (APPG) meeting on Education Governance and Leadership
Matthew Shanks (DASH
Co-Ordinator) and Lorraine Heath (DASH Executive Committee member) attended the
APPG meeting on Education Governance and Leadership, held 23rd February in the
House of Commons. It was hosted by Neil Carmichael MP and the National
Governors’ Association with members of the school governance and leadership
sector to debate the second stage of the National Funding Formula consultation.
Feedback from the
meeting indicates that "it was clear that Devon is not alone in its
concerns or the poor funding it will receive as a result of ‘fairer
funding’. Groups are divided between wanting the distribution changed
more fairly or lobbying for increased funding full-stop."
Devon response to the Stage 2
National Funding Formula Consultation
DAPH & DASH representatives on Schools’ Finance Group met on
Wednesday 1 March 2017 with officers from the Local Authority to consider the
detail of the National Funding Formula proposals contained within Stage 2 of
the Consultation.
The Local Authority
has prepared a template Devon response which schools can use to help inform
their own responses to the consultation. This response highlights the main
themes on which Devon would like to see further evidence or discussion prior to
the implementation of a new formula and before it can be considered fair.
The template Devon
response will be available for circulation to schools w/c 6 March 2017.
f40 group meets with MPs
The f40 group, which represents a group of the
lowest funded education authorities in England and of which Devon is a member,
continues its national campaign for fairer funding.
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Following a meeting held with MPs on 20 February 2017, it was
agreed that f40 must urgently come up with data to assist MPs, namely:
- the
minimum sum required (excluding other factors) to run a school.
- an
update on the 2016 modelling presented to the DfE, to allow MPs to see
what the impact of f40’s preferred formula would be on individual schools
(and therefore on constituencies overall).
- the
amount it will take to achieve a fair funding settlement.
This work is currently underway, and will be
incorporated within the final f40 response to the NFF consultation. In the
meantime, a copy of an initial f40 D R A F T R E S P O N S E is
available - note that this draft is for guidance only and not
the final version.
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