The Cabinet Member for Children’s Services introduced a report on the proposed School Funding Formula for 2013/14.
The Cabinet Member explained that the Government intended to move towards a national funding formula for schools in the next spending review and, as part of those preparations, had introduced the Schools Forums (England) Regulations 2012 which required local authorities to reconstitute their Schools Forum. One of the key responsibilities of the new Schools Forum would be to implement the Department for Educations’ new funding system for distributing funding to schools and other providers.
The Cabinet Member advised that four models had been developed based on a set of key values and the outcome of the extensive consultation exercise had identified a preferred option, Model D, which was underpinned by the following principles:
· To ensure as few schools as possible were adversely affected by the new formula;
· To move more in line with the national primary: secondary funding ratio to reduce the impact of any potential national changes in future years;
· To recognise that running a split site brought extra costs (for both primary and secondary schools) and the new funding formula should not disadvantage those schools that would be amalgamating;
· To ensure where schools were particularly affected they would be able to apply to the Schools Forum if they faced financial difficulty; and
· To recognise that secondary schools were adversely affected by changes in sixth form funding at the same time, which had to be considered in deciding the level of shift.
Cabinet agreed:
(i) To note the Barking and Dagenham Schools Forum Constitution at Appendix 1 to the report;
(ii) To note the outcome of the School Funding Formula consultation process and the comments of the Schools’ Forum on the proposed funding model for 2013/14, as detailed in the report;
(iii) To support the following two principles:
a. That the funding formula for 2013/14 should not produce any school that ‘loses’ funding, with the exception of the two schools highlighted in the report which had specific issues that could not be addressed through the formula.
b. That rapid and fair progress should continue to be made towards narrowing the gap between the primary and secondary sectors.
(iv) In the light of the above, to adopt Model D as the School Funding Formula for 2013/14, as detailed in paragraphs 2.12 - 2.13 and Appendix 6 of the report.