Agenda item

To consider and comment on the NFF proposals in order to inform the decision of the Executive.

1.    Roger Gough (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education) introduced the report which provided Members with an update on the implications of introducing a National Funding Formula for Kent schools and Kent County Council. He also provided an update on the consultation held with all Kent schools regarding a number of proposals to change KCC’s local funding formula from 1 April 2018.

2.    Simon Pleace (Finance Business Partner for Children, Young People and Education) said that the Secretary of State had announced an additional investment of £1.3 billion into schools budgets nationally, at the same time as moving to a National Funding Formula. The additional investment represented an increase of approximately 3% over the next two years and Kent was likely to receive an increase of approximately 7%. He said that the introduction of a National Funding Formula would benefit Kent greatly and this was welcomed. He referred to the report in further detail and provided an overall summary of the impact that the introduction of a National Funding Formula would have on Kent County Council. Kent received £839.4 million for the current financial year which funded all school budgets, both maintained schools and academies. This block of funding would increase by £27.6 million in 2018-2019 and would then increase by a further £22.3 million in 2019-2020. This meant that there would be an additional £50 million to allocate over the next 2 financial years, which was significantly more than Kent currently had to allocate. He said that consultation had taken place to decide how best to allocate the additional money to schools in Kent. He said that Kent would receive an additional £12.2 million once the National Funding Formula had been implemented. Mr Pleace was not able to confirm when the additional funding of £12.2 million would be available to Kent. He said that the methodology for calculating the funding had been by applying the National Funding Formula factors and rates; he referred to Appendix 1 in the report and highlighted the potential issues that the introduction of the National Funding Formula could bring.

a)    In response to a question, Simon Pleace discussed the Looked After Children (LAC) factor and its interaction with Pupil Premium Plus. He said that the money that each school spent on the Pupil Premium Plus had to be reported. He said that in the local funding formula, £525 was allocated per pupil and how that was spent as a school was at the school’s discretion. He said that 50% of the Pupil Premium Plus allocation went directly to the school on a per capita based on eligible pupils, the other part was held back and allocated out based on an application basis in regards to what the school was doing with the money. He discussed the rate that had been set by Government for the National Funding Formula and said that it was a set rate; he said that schools and funding forums thought that the rate should be lowered.

b)    In response to a question, Roger Gough (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education) discussed the focus that there had been in previous years regarding the local formula and said that there had been a lot of emphasis on the Pupil Premium funding level and low prior attainment.

c)    In response to comments and questions, Simon Pleace outlined the additional support that had been recommended by the funding formula group. This included support for the introduction of the minimum funding levels, increasing the basic entitlement for pupils to the maximum level, and introducing the sparsity factor which would support more rural schools.

d)    In response to a question, Patrick Leeson said that Ofsted expected all schools to be able to account for Pupil Premium and were expected to provide details on their website to allow the public to see what the impact of this funding was and how it was being spent. He added that schools were expected to account for other funding they receive.

e)    In response to a question, Simon Pleace said that as part of the consultation documentation that was provided to schools in October 2017, a spreadsheet accompanied the document which enabled individual schools to enter their DFE number which would provide them with the option of selecting certain criteria from the proposal and assess the impact that it had on their budget. He said that the Age weighted pupil unit (AWPU) had increased the basic entitlement and a number of other factors to the maximum National Funding Formula rates. The balance within the model was based on what had been perceived as affordable in the context of Kent, therefore it did not provide the National Funding Formula rates for some of the additional needs factors. This meant that the expectation would not have been raised from that illustration that the funding was going to be higher than what the report had suggested. He said that the expectation had been raised from what was published by the Department for Education (DFE), because what was published by the DFE would be what was implemented as the National Funding Formula. He said that the DFE had also published what Kent County Council was receiving within its school funding based on individual schools expectations.

3.    Roger Gough (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education) discussed the deprivation indicators and the proposals set out in the report in more detail.

a)    In response to a question, Roger Gough (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education) confirmed that he had received correspondence from Barton Court Grammar School regarding minimum pupil funding levels and this was being addressed.

b)    In response to a question, Roger Gough (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education) said that there were still judgements to be made and work to be done with regards to implementing the National Funding Formula.

4.     RESOLVED that the report be noted.