Agenda item

Report of the Head of Education Commissioning and School Organisation.

This report provides the financial outturn position for 2022/23 and has been received by Camden Schools Forum as part of its duty to monitor spending on schools and the financial health of the education sector across the Borough. The report explains the closing position at which there was an overall £6.05m balance across the DSG blocks, with individual schools balances marginally increasing by £0.03m. 

The report also updates the latest funding situation for the current financial year, 2023/24, and outlines the range of current pressures resulting from the current economic climate, conflicts, emergencies and ongoing “real terms” funding constraint including the most recent update on the National Funding formula (NFF).

The report outlines current funding arrangements for the next few years from the current planned transition to a “hard” national funding formula (NFF) which has currently been delayed to April 2024 at the earliest. It also outlines the measures that the authority, in conjunction with schools, headteachers and Camden Learning have taken to support schools through this transition and to help schools to continue to prepare for reductions in real terms funding.

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of Education Commissioning and School Organisation.

The Director of Education Commissioning and Inclusion and the Team Leader Schools and Designated Schools Grant (DSG) provided an overview of the report, which had been considered by Schools Forum in June 2023 as part of its duty to monitor spending on schools and the financial health of the education sector across the borough. The report provided an update on the financial outturn position for 2022/23, the current funding position, existing spending pressures, the current funding arrangements for the next few years from the current planned transition to a ‘hard’ national funding formula (NFF). The report outlined the measures that the authority, in conjunction with schools, headteachers and Camden Learning had taken to support schools through this transition and to help schools to continue to prepare for reductions in real terms funding.

The Chair thanked officers for the report and invited questions and comments from the Committee. The following was discussed:

-       In relation to section 4.3 (f) Teachers Pay award from September 2023, the Government agreed pay rise had increased to 6.5% since the publication of the report.

-       In relation to section 2.1 Early Years funding position, Members questioned why there were lower than expected drawdowns in Early Years and High Needs projects, when needs were increasing, and asked if it was related to delayed Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) assessments. In response, officers stated that an unspent £0.483m from the High Needs (HN) DSG was contributed to the Camden’s Local Inclusion Fund (CLIF) this financial year, which funded supporting Early Years settings to meet the needs of children with SEND. Officers confirmed they were profiling areas to mitigate challenges for children moving into statutory school age and were working with Early Years colleagues.

-       In relation to section 6.1 NFF, officers confirmed Camden was c.30% worse-off in funding compared to c.10 years ago and it was the decision of Government on how the NFF was calculated.

-       In relation to section 7 NFF beyond 2024/25, officers stated that the Education Schools Funding Agency (ESFA) would indicate the national schools budget towards the end of July 2023. Schools were increasingly having to trust their own judgment on predicting inflation and how that would affect their budgets and the Council would provide advice to schools. Officers noted that it was a risk that schools would make incorrect assumptions and unnecessary cuts, and the Council advised schools to be cautious.

-       In relation to Table 3a Extract, Proposed HN Additional Spend in 2023/24, a Co-opted Member asked for more information on external provisions. Officers responded stating that to set a plan for future provisions the Council had to ensure there was data and a strategy to support it. The £1.2 million detailed in the table was related to additional capacity within the system. Peter Grey, external national expert of children’s services and Director of Strategic Services for Children & Young People, compiled a paper on behalf of Camden which concluded that additional support would be required to support mainstream schools with in-house HN support, and that there should be an increase in local HN capacity. Through the Schools Forum, a HN sub-group was currently being developed which would comprise of Schools Forum members (headteachers and school governors) and Council officers to devise how to best utilise HN funding. Officers confirmed there had been an increase in the need for SEND independent schools. It was noted that the money underspent in HN had not been cumulating for years, and had only become more apparent in the past few years, significantly due to spending constraints during the pandemic.

-       A Co-opted Member stated that schools were reporting the desperate need for faster Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP) assessments, whilst there were significant HN underspends. In response, officers stated that the Camden SEND assessment approach was recognised by the DfE to be leading and innovative because it used other approaches in addition to EHCPs, such as clusters (groups of schools across the borough working on strong SEND frameworks and outcomes for children and young people) and Exceptional Needs Grants (ENG)(additional top-up funding used to meet the needs of Camden children in Camden mainstream schools where they had more complex SEND needs). Officers noted that 99% of EHCPs were completed within 20 weeks, however another factor to consider, as well as completion time, was the quality of the plans, quality assurance of the assessment and then the actual provision of the plan. Officers noted there was a lot of activity in the area of developing SEND provision locally and nationally.

-       In response to a Member asking if there was any data on how many teachers and teaching assistants Camden had lost in the past few years, officers responded that the concern had to be considered in an inner-city and national context. There were falling pupil rolls in inner-city London due to cost of living pressures. The Building Back Stronger Education Strategy and the move towards a confederated schools system would support schools with the challenges, in consultation with school leaders and governors.  

RESOLVED –

THAT the Committee:

a)    Note the 2022/23 outturn for all the blocks of the DSG as set out in section 1;

b)    Note the current 2023/24 level of funding (section 2) and the range of current pressures and future funding challenges for schools’ funding (section 3) and also the current and proposed next steps in the transition towards the “hard” national funding formula in section 4 and 5; and

c)    Note the most recent grant announcements since February 2023 from the ESFA relating to Afghanistan Resettlement (Education) Grant 2022 to 2023 and the GLA universal grants for Free School Meals for primary pupils from September 2023 (section 6).