To note the content of the report.

James Norris started off with the list of recommendations for the Forum to approve:

·       Funding limit factors of the school budget allocation 2023/24

·       Proposed funding approach for 2023/24

·       The Central School Services Block budgets 2023/24

·       Proposed de-delegation rates for 2023/24

·       Notes the planned Early Years formula consultation 2023/24

James Norris then summarised sections of the report. Regarding the analysis of consultation results (Section 4), 43% of schools had responded to the consultation, which James Norris stated was a positive result. He then went through the results of the consultation:

·       Minimum per pupil level funding (MPPL) guarantee to remain 0.5% was supported by 89% of respondents.

·       Continuation of capping and scaling received a 65% support from respondents despite some pushback from some schools.

·       Introduction of a new compulsory sparsity factor at 10% received a 62% rather than the proposed options of a 25% or 50% increase.

·       Application of any headroom received 42% support for the preferred option of adjusting the lump sum.

·       Increasing FSM Ev6 unit rates to NFF level for 2023/24 received 100% support.

·       Increasing the IDACI bands C to F unit rates to NFF 2023/24 levels was supported by 52% of schools.

·       Preferred model schools received a mixed response with 44% of responses supporting Model One.

·       Proposed changes to the Notional SEN factors received 42% of support with 46% of schools being uncertain about this.

James Norris moved onto Growth Funding (section 5). He reported that the growth funding for 2022/23 was £705,000. As per the previous report, £496,000 was already released into the forecast for the 2022/23 financial year. Presently, the financial allocation for 2023/24 was not confirmed but was expected to be received in December 2022, and then aim to share this in the next Schools Forum meeting in January 2023.

Moving on, James Norris stated that the Central School Services Block (section 6) and the De-Delegation Rates (section 7) would require the Forum’s approval.

On Early Years National Funding Formula (section 8), James Norris stated that the early years consultation would be sent out in January 2023 to all providers.

Councillor Tisi asked for an explanation of the different models in question 7 of the consultation. James Norris replied that he could have them recirculated after the meeting.

The Forum went onto approving the recommendations

UNANINMOUSLY RESOLVED: The Forum agreed the following:

·       Funding factors of the school budget allocation 2023/24 as per the consultation and current report and previous report from the previous meeting in November 2022.

·       Proposed funding approach for 2023/24

·       The Central School Services Block budgets 2023/24

·       The proposed de-delegation rates for 2023/24 as set out in paragraph 6 and table 5 for secondary maintained schools

Regarding the proposed de-delegation rates, James Norris explained that this only applied to both primary and secondary maintained schools. Due to the lack of member representatives from primary schools during the meeting, James Norris suggested that the Forum approve the de-delegation rates for maintained secondary schools. As for the maintained primary schools, James Norris stated that he may have to bring a similar report to the next meeting in January 2023 where hopefully a representative from a maintained primary school could attend.

James Norris also suggested that if the next meeting in January 2023 did not have a primary maintained school representative, then as de-delegation rates for maintained primary schools had not changed, they would be approved.

Clive Haines suggested Joolz Scarlett could be the representative to approve the proposal as, while she was representing a special needs school, it still took in primary school pupils. The Vice-Chairman suggested to delay the approval to the next meeting whereby a maintained primary school representative would be sought out; but if one could not be acquired, then Joolz Scarlett would do the approval. Joolz Scarlett stated that the proposal did not affect her budget and thus was uncertain whether she could give her approval; but added that if she was allowed to, then she would approve it.

James Norris commented that as rates had changed, this would be a safe approach.

The Forum noted the report.