Agenda item

To consider the information report.

Jack Cutler, Quality and Commissioning, BCP Council, presented the report.

There has not been the same level of announcements that there would normally be at this time of year. There is a good indication of what the NFF will be. There will be few changes to the NFF in 20/21 compared to last year. The minimum per pupil funding levels (MPPFLs) will increase by £250 for Primary and £200 for Secondary.

The Mobility factor is included in the calculation to these MPPFLs. It was noted that the MPPFL is received by the LA to distribute to schools.

The Government is consulting on making the minimum levels mandatory in the Local Formula. Schools were encouraged to engage with the consultation.

The Minimum Funding Guarantee (MFG) will be allocated through the NFF at 1.84% in line with inflation. Locally a variance can be set between 0.5% and 1.84%. A majority of the funding formula factors will see an increase of 4% for 20/21 except for the Free Schools Meals (FSM) factor.

Projections based on current knowns and assumptions, and static pupil numbers show that primary phase funding will increase by 6% and secondary by 5%. Table 2 showed the predicted difference this would make to NFF. It would bring more schools onto the NFF.

The formula is less generous to schools on MFG that have high levels of deprivation and additional needs and will therefore be protected. There are fewer schools on MFG than last year.

Different scenarios were put forward on how the formula may work but it was noted until the full details were released the figures could not be confirmed. It was suggested that a smaller growth factor will be received this year. Currently BCP only has growth in the secondary sector and this will be the first year this would be funded through local basic need growth funding.

It was questioned whether the amount of growth funding received would meet the growth factor and it was confirmed that current forecasts suggest it would.

Questions were invited from Forum.

A discussion was held on whether the LA had considered how its merger and funding would affect maintained special schools. It was asked whether the LA would be required to apply the same MFG rate for special schools as that set for mainstream schools. During the meeting it was reported that this is likely to be the case but has not yet been confirmed by the DfE. Post meeting the LA has revised this view and are not expecting special school MFG to be required to be identical to mainstream school MFG. It was noted that this may be an opportunity to look at special school funding as a whole and review the decisions made historically.

It was noted that last year all schools contributed towards the transfer into the HNB. With the expected Government decision that the MPPFL’s cannot be changed this could potentially mean a large proportion of schools would not contribute to any transfer of funding to the HNB. It was believed that this would create a significant issue and it was asked what the LA would do regarding a disapplication request.

The Government are currently consulting regarding MPPFL mandatory requirement in the local formula and any issues surrounding this. One of the areas where they may approve a disapplication request is if it was to contribute towards a transfer to the HNB.

It was decided that a disapplication request would be logged and this would allow for the Forum to have a discussion whether they would like to implement it.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.