Agenda item

The Department for Education is intending to introduce national school funding reforms from April 2013. The final policy will be known in December 2012. These funding reforms affect all areas of schools and colleges, not just SEN, as the indictors used in the funding formula are refined.

The Divisional Director for Learning and Inclusion Services introduced this item to the Panel. He explained that the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) was to be divided into three streams (schools block, high need block and early years block), and the Local Authority (LA) will set the budget it gives to schools according to a much-simplified formula, keeping back cash for a limited number of specified central functions. He added that the LA has to outline its formula to the Educational Funding Authority (EFA), which can act if it thinks the LA's budget is wrong or unfair.

He stated that the Government's reform agenda "aims to encourage the development of high-quality provision", to "improve transparency", to "empower young people and their families" and to "increase choice". The document says the current funding system is insufficiently responsive and may create perverse financial incentives which prevent pupils getting the right educational experience.

The new approach will see provision for high needs pupils and students funded on a mixture of a place- and a pupil-led basis. Under a place-plus approach high needs funding will comprise of three elements, which can be applied across all provision for high needs pupils and students.

• Element 1 or “core education funding”: the mainstream unit of per-pupil or per-student education funding. In the school sector for pre-16 pupils, this is the age-weighted pupil unit (AWPU), while for post-16 provision in schools and in the FE sector this is the mainstream per-student funding as calculated by the national 16-19 funding system.

• Element 2 or “additional support funding”: a clearly identified budget for providers to provide additional support for high needs pupils or students with additional needs up to an agreed level. This is identified as the ‘notional budget’

• Element 3 or “top-up funding”: funding above elements 1 and 2 to meet the total cost of the education provision required by an individual high needs pupil or student, as based on the pupil’s or student’s assessed needs.

He explained how SEN Funding would work in Bath and North East Somerset?

Special schools and units - regardless of whether the school is an academy of not, the school/unit will be funded by the EFA at the rate of £10,000 per commissioned place. This is the place element of the funding. It is important to note that this is not new funding - it will have been removed from our grant. The LA is then responsible for providing any ‘top up’ funding based on the pupils individual needs from the high need block. This will be determined by the SEN team through assessment and a banding mechanism. Other LAs placing pupils in our schools will deal direct with the school as recoupment arrangements will cease.

Mainstream schools – The Government has determined that each school has within its formula budget £4,000 core funding (element 1) and £6,000 additional support funding (element 2) and this funding must be used to support pupils with additional or SEN needs. If the school is unable to meet the needs of each pupil with SEN, within the core and additional support funding, they can ask the LA to provide ‘top up’ funding (element 3) from the high needs block. Any request will be assessed, as now, through a request for a statutory assessment. The difference to the current system is that as the Government have introduced a financial threshold, the LA will be asking schools for details of how they have spent the additional needs funding to the value of £6,000.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked if this provision had been financially assessed by the Council.

The Divisional Director Learning and Inclusion Services replied that it had and that funding had been set aside using historical data.

Peter Mountstephen commented that he and colleagues had concerns about these reforms. He added that it was difficult not to see them as un-inclusive and he felt that it militated against the needs of young people.

The Chairman commented that she was aware of some Governors who had expressed a similar view.

The People & Communities Strategic Director commented that the Teaching Associations and the respective Unions should challenge the Department for Education as he believed it was a fundamentally flawed process.

Councillor Sarah Bevan commented that Local Authorities should not be put in this position and questioned the introduction of a financial threshold from a Human Rights point of view.

The Chairman thanked the report author and his colleagues for the work they had done.