Decision details

Proposed Decision:

To approve changes to the Kent County Council local funding formula for schools that is used to calculate school budgets from 1 April 2022. 

Delegate authority to the Corporate Director of Children, Young People and Education to make any necessary changes to the Local Funding Formula rates once final affordability is known in January 2022 after provisional school budgets have been calculated.

Reason for the decision:

In response to the Government confirming the additional funding for schools, Kent County Council is set to receive approximately £50m additional funding in 2022-23 for primary and secondary school budgets of which £23m relates to increases in funding rates. This decision will confirm how this additional funding will be distributed in line with Government guidelines. 

Background:

The Government has confirmed the Council continues to be responsible for operating a local funding formula for Kent maintained schools (and this formula is also used by the Education and Skills Funding Agency for calculating Kent academy budgets) during 2022-23 and legislation dictates that any changes to that formula is subject to an all school consultation which took place in November 2021 along with seeking views from the Schools Funding Forum. The consultation focused on how we allocate any additional funding and a request to transfer a further 1% from the schools to the high needs block to support inclusive practices in schools (the latter is also subject to Secretary of State approval).

Options:

The options considered are outlined in the consultation document to schools. Proposed changes to the primary and secondary schools funding formula have been limited to avoid any excessive deviation from the National Funding Formula (NFF) used by Government to allocate school funding to local authorities for distribution to schools. This is in line with previous recommendations from both schools & the Schools Funding Forum who have supported the general principle that “our Local Funding Formula should move towards the NFF, but at the same time continue to utilise local flexibility to address areas of local concern”. Mandatory factors and rates prescribed by Government have also limited proposed options.

How the proposed decision meets the objectives of ‘Increasing Opportunities, Improving Outcomes: Kent County Council’s Strategic Statement (2015-2020)’:

The decision is linked to achieving the objective “the Children and young people in Kent get the best start in life” within the ‘Increasing Opportunities, Improving Outcomes: Kent County Council’s Strategic Statement (2015-2020)’

As Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, I agree to:

1. Transfer 1% of the Schools Block (which equates to approximately to £10.0m) into the High Needs Block for 2022-23.

2. In relation to the Kent local funding formula for schools:

i.               Continue with the Falling Roll fund for 2022-23.

ii.              Set the local Minimum Funding Guarantee percentage at 0.5% for 2022-23 for primary and secondary schools.

iii.             Set the Ever 6 Free School Meals Factor for 2022-23 as per the value in the table below:

iv.            Set the Basic Entitlement Factor for 2022-23 as per the value in the table below:

v.              All other factors within the current local funding formula to be set as per the National Funding Formula (NFF), with most increasing between 2-3% compared to 2021-22. 

3. Increase the base rate paid to Early Years providers for Free entitlement provision by 17p for three- and four-year olds and 21p for two-year olds.

4. Increase the factor values of the Special Schools funding formula, Alternative Provision/Pupil Referral Units and Specialist Resource Provisions by 4%. Mainstream top-up rates to increase by 1.25% in line with the increase in the national insurance rise.

5. Delegate authority to the Corporate Director of Children, Young People and Education to make any further necessary changes to funding rates in light of any final affordability issues.