Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Families considered a

report that sought the approval for changes to the Council’s local schools funding formula for the 2024-25 financial year in line with the Schools National Funding Formula set out by the Department for Education (DfE).

Please be advised that the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny had agreed that the call-in procedure shall not apply to this urgent decision. This is because the decision was urgent and any delay in implementation caused by the call-in procedure would seriously prejudice the Council's or the public's interests due to the fact that the Council was legally required to submit the Authority Proforma Tool to the Department for Education (DfE) by 22 January 2024.

This decision would ensure that the Council would meet its legal obligations and would allow the authority to detail its schools block funding (SBF) formulae to model and confirm how it planned to fund for the funding year. Accordingly, the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny Committee had agreed that the decision was both reasonable in all circumstances, and that it should be treated as a matter of urgency. This is in accordance with Part 4, Section H, and Paragraph 18 (a) and (b) of the Council Constitution.

RESOLVED

The Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Families:

1.    To agree the changes to the local schools funding formula for the 2024-25 financial year.

2.    To adopt Model 1 as outlined in the consultation with schools to set 0.46% the Minimum Funding Guarantee to all schools.

3.    To note the transfer of 0.50% from the Schools Block allocation to the High Needs Block as agreed by the School’s Forum under the safety valve agreement with the DfE in October 2023. At the October 2023 decision, this was estimated at £1.140m and with the proposed DSG allocation since published this equates to £1.129m.

4.    To agree the Growth fund be set at £300k.

5.    To agree the Block transfer of £122k from the Schools Block to the Central Block for Education Welfare Services, dependent on any necessary consent from the DfE.

6.    To agree the block transfer from the school’s block to the Early Years block of £60k to fund a Nursery School on a split site, dependent on any necessary consent from the DfE.

7.    To agree the de-delegation of £210k for Trade Union Representation (for maintained schools only).

Reasons for decision

The Council was legally required to set the local schools funding formula and must submit this to the ESFA by 22^nd January 2024. These changes required approval by the Council to complete the Authority Proforma Tool, as required by the ESFA. Such approval could be given on behalf of the Council by the Lead Member.

Options Considered

All schools in Haringey were consulted on the proposed changes for 2024-25 to the Council’s Schools Funding Formula via e-survey. The consultation started on 25^th November 2023, with a deadline of 8^th December 2023 for responses from Head Teachers and Chairs of Governors.

Table A showed options available and total responses received for all options.

Table A Consultation Results:

Question one of the consultation exercises asked schools’ which model they preferred, either model 1 or model 2. 10 respondents preferred model 1 and 22 respondents preferred model 2.

While it remained the Government’s intention that a school’s budget should be set on the basis of a single national formula, or NFF in 2024-25, local authorities are still allowed to use either the NFF formula values or locally agreed values within the allowable NFF range to determine funding allocations for schools.

The update of NFF for schools and high needs for 2024/25 was published by the DfE in July 2023 and republication in October 2023 on the following link and the move to a ‘hard’ formula without local input had not been implemented by the DfE with minimal changes for 2024/25.

School Funding Formula 2024/25

Following a decision by Schools Forum in October 2023, the model options for the 2024/25 DSG funding formula consultation with all schools was delegated to the Schools Block Working Group (SBWG). The allowable range for setting the MFG for 2023-24 is between +0% to +0.5%. With the final settlement figures the MFG could only be set between 0.46% and -3.8% (a minus MFG would require a disapplication request.

Now the final settlement had been announced at £225.783m and the NFF funding requirements applied to the APT the adoption of model 1 (NFF) was the only option available based upon affordability.

a)    The maximum local block transfer was set at 0.5%. The October 2023 schools’ forum agreed a block transfer of 0.5% to HNB. The adoption of the £0.122m Education Welfare Services and £0.060m split site would be contingent on DfE approval for block transfers above 0.5% and a disapplication request had been submitted 17th November 2023.

b)    Two MFG models were selected for consultation and appendix 1 details reported questions and responses, table F below summarised models with model 2 being unaffordable with formula factors costing additional £3.5m, plus MFG requirement being set to -3.8% which would require a disapplication request to SoS.

Further to the consultation responses and the DSG allocations (see Appendix 1 for the financial implication of each decision for all schools) the following proposals were recommended for school’s forum approval, subject to financial and data validation by the ESFA formula validation checks.

Following the consultation results and confirmations of the published allocations of the APT on 19th December 2023, see Appendix 1 of the report for individual school allocations for 2024-25 Model 1 were approved by the School’s Forum on 11th January 2023.