The Warwickshire Schools Forum met on Thursday 25 September 2025 to discuss school funding. The agenda included discussion of de-delegation of school block budgets, a scheme for financing schools, and a Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) financial monitoring report. The forum was also scheduled to discuss a DSG recovery plan update, early years and childcare place sufficiency, and an update on the academisation of schools.

DSG Recovery Plan

The Schools Forum was scheduled to discuss and comment on the DSG Recovery Plan. The Delivering Better Value (DBV) Programme, which aimed to mitigate the overspend on the High Needs Block¹ as the main activity in the DSG Recovery Plan, began in April 2024 and ended in July 2025.

The report stated that the programme had not achieved its aims, and that while resourced provision² is delivering cost avoidance in the local system, this is not translating into a reduction against the forecast due to the increase in the numbers of children with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans[^4] and increased unit costs at independent specialist provision.

The report noted three ways to mitigate spending on EHC plans:

• Reduce the number of children with EHC plans
• Reduce the length of time a child has an EHC plan
• Reduce the unit cost for a child with an EHC plan

The Spending Review in June 2025 stated that a White Paper regarding special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is scheduled for autumn 2025, and transformation funding nationally has been set aside for 2026-27 and 2027-28.

The number of children with EHC plans in Warwickshire has increased from 2,781 in 2014 to 6,868 at the January 2025 census, and as of September 2025, Warwickshire supports 7,636 children and young people with EHC plans.

The report stated that the National Audit Office had predicted that four in ten councils would face bankruptcy if the council has to balance its current overspend on SEND.

The DBV analysis provided a long-term forecast for the overspend and forecast that without action, the worst-case scenario was that cumulative deficit on the High Needs Block would increase to £267m by 2028, and the best case scenario was a cumulative deficit of £146m by 2028.

The report stated that the aim of the DBV programme had been to follow the path of the Lower Bound Target Mitigated Deficit, but that the current trajectory exceeds this aim and remains closer to and above the upper bound unmitigated deficit. The main reasons for this are the increase in the number of children with EHC plans and the increased unit costs compared to the initial analysis.

Progress in the establishment of resourced provision is ahead of target, with 154 new places created for 2025/26, and in total, 448 places are now available across 39 schools (target for January 2026 was 327 places).

The Inclusion Framework trial comprised 45 schools, but it has not had the desired impact to reduce EHC needs assessment requests in these areas, and will not be rolled out countywide, but the approach is available to schools as part of the council's traded offer.

As part of the workforce development workstream, just over 1,000 school staff attended training, and new resources have been developed by and for schools, including 17 videos on how to deliver specialist interventions. All schools have also been offered a resources pack, based on the most cost-effective materials identified by SEND Co-ordinators.

The EHC plan top-up funding project has rolled out a new top-up funding matrix since September 2023, aligning resources with the provision set out in the child's EHC plan, which has led to resources being released sooner and significantly reducing the number of costed individual education plans (IEPs) being submitted.

The council is exploring where efficiencies can be made in the way independent specialist provision is commissioned and in the commissioning of alternative provision.

2025/26 Dedicated Schools Grant Financial Monitoring Report

The Schools Forum was scheduled to note the DSG forecast financial outturn position for 2025/26, as at Q1, and the forecasted outturn position of the DSG reserve for 2025/26, as at Q1.

The total 2025/26 DSG allocation for Warwickshire, reported to Schools Forum in March 2025, was £682.117m, but the DSG allocation has since been updated to reflect the updated financial year 2025 to 2026 Academy/High Needs recoupment data, and the Early Years block has been updated with forecasted additional income to reflect the increase in provision.

The report stated that the DfE have required all local authorities to complete a recovery plan should the expenditure variance on the DSG exceed 1%, and that the forecast variance of £65.941m equates to a 19.4% overspend, which exceeds the DfE threshold.

The key financial risk to be highlighted is the £66.503m overspend in the High Needs Block, and that in order to give a realistic budget for managers to work with, the High Needs Block budget was set with an anticipated overspend of £60.587m, but the High Needs Block forecast is now exceeding this by a further forecast overspend of £5.916m.

The report also noted the following forecasts:

• Schools Block (£0.056m overspend) - The Growth Fund (Exceptional Pupil Numbers) early forecast is a £0.101m overspend due to increases in pupil numbers.
• High Needs Block (£66.503 overspend)
  • Top-ups to mainstream schools - £4.210m overspend.
  • Independent Special Schools (ISPs) - £0.421m overspend.
  • Post 16 - £0.424m overspend.
  • SENDAR Alternative Provision - £1.027m overspend.
• Early Years Block (£0.265m underspend)
  • 3 & 4-year-olds - The overall total forecast remains underspent due to estimated pupil numbers for the Autumn and Spring terms.
  • 2-year-olds - An increase in the number of entitlements for working parents of two-year-olds is being observed.
  • Under 2s - A minor change has been made to the Q1 forecast to reflect the actual number of children in the summer term.
  • SEND Early Years team - a £0.232m underspend due to staff vacancies and less demand for services from settings.
• Central Schools Services Block- CSSB (£0.353m underspend) - The contingency element of this budget is underspent by £0.244m, with the Admissions service underspending by £0.065m (vacancies) as well as a £0.031m underspend for the Warwickshire wide school copyright licence payment following a late in year DfE announcement.

De-Delegation of Schools Block Budgets for 2026-27

The Schools Forum was asked to decide whether to support the continued de-delegation of the following services in 2026-27:

• Free School Meal Eligibility
• English as an Additional Language
• Trade Union Facility Time Funding
• School Improvement
• Gypsy and Romany Travellers
• Behaviour Support Services
• Medical Referrals for Employees

De-delegation enables some services to maintained schools to be provided centrally and the funding to do so be retained by the local authority, and if de-delegation stops then the centrally retained funding would be delegated in the main school budget and the local authority would either stop providing or charge for the service.

A consultation with maintained schools seeking their views on the continuation of the de-delegation of funding has been undertaken to provide supporting evidence to the Forum in coming to a decision.

As of 2 September 2025, Warwickshire has 98 Maintained Primary Schools and 1 Maintained Secondary School, and responses have been received from 70 maintained primary schools and 1 maintained secondary school.

The one maintained secondary school responded to the consultation and voted to support continued de-delegation across all 4 categories.

The consultation results from primary schools for each of the service areas were:

• Free School Meals Eligibility - 92.9%% Yes, 7.1% No
• English as an Additional Language - 72.9% Yes, 27.1% No
• Trade Union Facility Time - 80.0% Yes, 22.0% No
• School Improvement:
  • Option 1: Increase in de-delegation £10.24 per pupil to fund a Tier 4 Strategy Manager - 20.0%
  • Option 2: Increase in de-delegation £8.78 per pupil to fund a Tier 5 Officer - 80.0%
• Gypsy and Romany Travellers - 67.1% Yes, 32.9% No
• Specialist SEND Support Services - 85.7% Yes, 14.3% No
• Medical Referral of Employees - 95.7% Yes, 4.3% No

Section 48 – Scheme for the Financing of Schools

The maintained school representatives of Schools Forum were asked to approve the updated Scheme, which reflects the proposed changes brought to June's Schools Forum meeting and the changes that were issued by Department for Education (DfE) at the end of March 2025.

Warwickshire County Council is required to publish a Scheme for financing of schools setting out the financial relationship between the authority and the schools it maintains.

Following the June Schools Forum meeting, the draft changes were sent to all maintained schools for consultation, and three replies were received.

Early Years & Childcare Place Sufficiency

The Schools Forum was scheduled to receive an update on early years and childcare, early education entitlements and new entitlements.

Sufficiency of early years and childcare places are a statutory duty for Warwickshire County Council and defined in the Childcare Acts 2006 & 2016, and a gradual phasing of the new working entitlements for children from 9 months + and 2 year olds has been rolling out since April 2024 with the final phase to be implemented from this September.

Eligible families are now able to access 30 hours (38 weeks per year or equivalent) for their children from 9 months +, 2 years and 3 and 4 year olds.

Warwickshire continues to see good engagement with the working parent entitlements for both the original offer for 3 and 4 year olds and the newly introduced hours for 2 year olds and under.

Take up of funded 2 year old places for families receiving additional forms of support (2Help) had improved post-COVID due to targeted efforts, but has seen a recent statistical decline following the expansion of working parent entitlements for 2 year-olds.

The take up of working parent entitlement hours continues to grow and are in line with national expectations and engagement.

The Warwickshire Early Education Funding directory of providers continues to operate with an annual number of 500 + funded providers delivering the 9 months +, 2, 3 and 4 year old entitlements with the majority of these settings offering the working parent entitlements.

Since 2024, via capital projects supported by DfE capital funding allocations, alongside targeted use of WCC allocations of developer funding has seen a creation of an additional 1100+ new early years places across the county, and by 2027 there will be new nursery spaces created at Callendar Farm School, Shottery and Lighthorne Heath Primary Schools.

Update on Academisation of Schools

The Schools Forum was scheduled to note the number of maintained schools, academy schools and new conversions.

This now means that 59.35% of Warwickshire maintained schools have converted to academy status, and there have been 7 schools converting to academy status since 1 April 2025:

• Coten End Primary School
• Clapham Terrace Community Primary School and Nursery
• Evergreen School
• Exhall Junior School
• Hillmorton Primary School
• Michael Drayton Junior School
• Westgate Primary School

Forward Plan

The Schools Forum was scheduled to discuss the forward plan for 2025-2026:

• 5 November 2025 – Extraordinary
  • 0. 5% transfer
• 15 January 2026
  • 2026-27 National Funding Formula
  • 2026-27 Early Years Funding Formula
  • 2026-27 Pupil Growth Fund
  • DSG 2026-27 Budget
  • DSG 2025-26 Forecast
  • DSG Recovery Plan Update
  • DSG Monitoring Report 2025-26
• June 2026 (TBC)
  • Section 48 – Scheme for Financing Schools (subject to any ESFA guidance changes)
  • DSG 2025-26 Outturn
  • DSG Recovery Plan Update
  • De-delegation & Disapplication Consultation Timetable 2027-28
• September (TBC)
  • De-delegation 2027-28
  • Section 48 – Scheme for Financing Schools
  • DSG 2026-27 Forecast
  • 2027-28 National Funding Formula Timetable
  • Estimated Schools Budget 2027-28
  • DSG Recovery Plan Update
  • Early Years & Childcare Place Sufficiency