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West Northamptonshire Schools Forum - Wednesday 11th December 2024 2.00 pm
December 11, 2024 View on council websiteSummary
The meeting of the West Northamptonshire Schools Forum was scheduled to consider an update on the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), including a number of forecast overspends. The meeting was also scheduled to consider the outcome of consultations on the proposed 2025-26 school and Early Years budgets.
Dedicated Schools Grant Monitoring 2024-25
The Forum was scheduled to receive a report on the forecast outturn for the 2024-25 financial year prepared at Period 7 (October 2024) for the Dedicated Schools Grant.
This report described how the DSG is allocated to the Local Authority by central Government and is then used to fund schools (local authority maintained and academies), early years providers and high needs education in further education (age 16 to 25).
The report described how the Council reported its 2023-24 provisional outturn position to Cabinet in June 2024, and Schools Forum in July 2024 with an overspend of £4.1m against a £443.9m gross DSG budget. It noted that:
The cumulative DSG balances brought forwards from 2023-24 total £1.0m overall, with a £6.2m deficit balance on the High Needs Block.
The report explained that West Northamptonshire, “like many councils had seen significant increases in demands and costs of statutory services,” and that the:
forecast outturn currently being estimated for the current financial year across DSG was an overspend of £12.1m
The report described how this was, “mainly due to demand pressures on the HNB, which was forecast to overspend by £12.3m,” and noted that West Northamptonshire was among the lowest funded councils compared with regional and national benchmarks
.
The report explained that the overspend in the High Needs Block was:
entirely driven by provision for pupils with SEN in local schools.
The report also noted that “increases in exclusions [had] resulted in a forecast overspend of £3.5m on alternative provision".
Mainstream School Budgets 2025-26
The Forum was scheduled to be informed of the responses to the consultation on the 2025-26 School Budget. The consultation ran from 6 November to 1 December and 29 responses were received from 185 schools.
The forum was asked to vote on whether they agreed or disagreed with the council’s proposal to continue to transfer 0.5% of funding from the Schools Block to the High Needs Block.
If the modelling of 2025-26 budgets showed that the total of the schools individual budgets shares, on the national funding formula, came to a value higher than the schools block allocation, the forum was asked whether it agreed or disagreed with the proposal to balance the schools individual budget shares by applying a cap to year on year per pupil increases.
The forum was asked to vote on whether it agreed or disagreed with the growth added into the schools budgets for new and growing schools where new classes were being added but were not yet in the October census.
It was asked to vote on whether it agreed or disagreed with the growth fund budget proposal to cover additional classes in schools in 2025-26. The report explained that, “the forecast expenditure required for 2025-26 is £1.13m,” and that this would support the following schools:
- Campion
- Danetre and Southbrook Learning Village
- Duston School
- Hardingstone Primary
- Kingsthorpe College
- Marie Weller Primary
- Monksmoor Primary
- Northampton Academy
- Northampton School for Boys
- Roade Primary
- The Parker E-ACT
- Wootton Park School
The forum was also asked to vote on whether it agreed or disagreed with the proposed central schools services block expenditure. The proposed central school services block budget included £0.37m for Greenfields Special School, which the report described as being allocated for Private Finance Initiative funding.
The forum was asked to make decisions on the proposed de-delegations for trade union facility time, School Improvement Grant, and redundancy costs for maintained schools. The forum was asked to choose between two options for the Trade Union Facility Time de-delegation. The first option would set a per-pupil rate of £10.57, “which would maintain the budget available due to the reducing number of maintained schools and lower buy in by academies and lack of underspend to carry forward. The second option proposed a rate of £7.93, which
would reduce the service by a quarter".
Two options were also proposed for the School Improvement Grant de-delegation. The first would keep the rate the same as in 2023-24 and 2024-25, at £5.50. The second option proposed a rate of £5.66, to match the estimated 3% increase in the schools block.
The report noted that there was no proposed change to the rate of £4.00 for the Redundancy Support de-delegation.
Finally, the forum was asked to vote on whether it agreed or disagreed with the continuation of the notional SEND calculation and policy.
Early Years Funding 2025-26
The forum was scheduled to consider the outcome of the consultation on the Early Years Funding Formula for 2025 – 2026.
The report explained that the consultation had sought the views of Early Years providers before implementing any changes to base rate and supplements for the PVI, Childminders, School based nursery providers and the Maintained Nursery Schools (MNS)
.
The report described how the consultation had asked providers whether they agreed or disagreed with a proposal to increase to 96% of the total budget for 3-and-4-year-old funding being paid to providers and retaining 4% centrally.
The consultation asked providers to choose between two options for the 2-year-old funding. The first would retain 4% centrally and the second would retain 3% centrally. The report noted that the proposal to retain 4% of the budget centrally was, “in line with the approach taken in the majority of local areas, including geographical and regional neighbours of WNC”.
The report stated that the consultation had sought the sector's views on the introduction of a deprivation supplement for under 2’s and 2-year-olds. It noted that the deprivation supplement would continue for 3&4-year-olds.
Finally, the report explained that the consultation had sought the views of providers on the proposal to continue the current distribution of the Maintained Nursery School Supplement funding, whereby “5% [is funded] based on numbers of children from Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) 30% postcodes and the remainder on January census hours”.
High Needs Funding Project Update
The forum was scheduled to receive an update on the changes to funding methodology and funding levels implemented from 1 April 2024 for Targeted SEND Funding for children in early years settings and from 1 September 2024 for TSF for school age children plus Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) funding.
The report noted that a number of payment methodologies and funding levels for young people with, and without, EHC Plans, had now been implemented for early years settings, mainstream schools and SEND units at mainstream schools. These included changes to funding methodologies, administration and funding levels for Targeted SEND Funding support for both early years settings and mainstream schools (non-statutory). The report explained that:
From 1 September 2024, funding levels for TSF for mainstream schools for new applications are now aligned to the SEND Ranges 4a, 4b, 5, 6, and 7 (WNC graduated approach).
The report explained that from 1 September EHCP funding calculation would use the Resource Allocation System (RAS) to calculate the element 3 top up for early years settings, mainstream schools and SEND units at mainstream schools.
It noted that this meant that RAS methodology was now used to calculate payments for 85% of the EHC Plan cohort, and that implementation of the new RAS funding ensured that the vast majority of mainstream schools and SEND units were now accessing increased funding. It explained that for those schools whose funding had been reduced, payment protection had been implemented to offset any reduction in the first financial year of implementation. It noted that:
Payment protection of 100% at total school level, means that no mainstream schools, SEND units or early years settings will lose money as a result of these changes.
The report explained that the level of payment protection would then reduce to 50% for the April 2025 to March 2026 financial year, and then further to 25% for the April 2026 to March 2027 financial year.
The report stated that in order to increase transparency, the council had started to distribute Needs Profile Forms to education providers.
Finally the report explained that Northampton College had requested an extension to the planning and development phase for the changes to EHCP funding for the Further Education sector, meaning that the implementation of any agreed changes would be delayed from 1 August 2025 to 1 August 2026.
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