To seek the views of the forum on local and national school funding issues, including the recommendations of the budget working group (BWG) on the following matters:

•           Herefordshire schools budget 2022/23 including schools consultation paper

•           Fair funding for all - government consultation paper 7 July 2021

•           High needs budget 2022/23

Behaviour Support Service

The principal educational psychologist attended for this item and set out the background to the proposed de-delegation for the behavioural service. Forum members heard that:

·        the service was currently operating on a pay as you go model and this was not sustainable beyond 2022;

·        two options would be set out in the consultation papers for schools, a base level service and an enhanced service;

·        the base level service would offer 113 days free at point of use for LA maintained schools, to cover individual consultation work, one-to-one interventions with children and workshops to teach skills to staff that they could take back to their schools;

·        if schools supported the higher level service this would allow for a modest expansion in the team and increase the number of free days available;

·        a set of criteria would be produced to prioritise requests for support;

·        academies would continue to purchase services on a traded basis;

·        the nurture hubs were an initiative sitting between mainstream and specialist provision and, after an initial settling in period, it was hoped they would offer outreach services that would complement the services of the behaviour team;

·        some specific projects would continue to be funded separately.

The strategic finance manager explained that de-delegation would deduct funds from LA maintained school budgets at source and that the behaviour support team was a service for which the DfE permitted de-delegation. The base level service would come at a cost of £4 per pupil while the higher level offer would costs around £5.50 per pupil. Special schools were not included but could buy in support as required. It was intended that the funding agreed through de-delegation would be matched from the high needs block.

In discussing the proposal forum members highlighted the importance of the service, particularly in light of the unknown impact of covid. The relationship with pupil referral unit services was queried and it was suggested that conversations should take place with the new head of the unit once he was in post.

Herefordshire schools budget 2022/23

The strategic finance manager gave a presentation on the projected schools budget for 22/23. The principles used were the same as in previous years, namely to fully fund the national funding formula, transfer funding to the high needs block to support the SEN protection scheme and aim to set a balanced high needs budget. If there was surplus funding the strategic finance manager proposed to add this to balances to top up the reserves.

A change in the way sparsity was calculated would result in 9 additional small primary schools benefitting from this factor. The expected growth fund allocation would cover these additional costs.

The chair of the budget working group commented that there had been a good discussion about the proposals at the recent working group meeting and that group members had recommended the draft consultation paper. The proposals regarding the de-delegation for behaviour support had been added after that meeting and would be discussed at the next meeting.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29