To conclude the deliberations undertaken to date regarding the statutory requirements of 25 hour PRU provision.

The Committee considered the statutory requirements of 25 hour PRU provision, the need to establish a medical PRU facility, and a suitable funding model.

The Head of Additional Needs (HAN) presented the report, consideration of which had been deferred at the Forum’s meeting in January 2011.

He reported that Herefordshire Secondary Head Teachers Association’s (HASH) preferred option for funding the statutory 25 hours of educational provision per week to pupils with behavioural, social and emotional difficulties in Pupil Referral Units (PRU) would be to charge secondary schools £3,000 per PRU place each year with effect from 1 April 2011, as described at paragraph 3 of the report.  The Forum was asked to contribute £78k in 2011/12 from the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) to provide the balance of funding during 2011/12 during the transition phase of the charging scheme.

He noted that additional funding for tuition of pupils with medical needs in the PRUs was no longer required.

In the course of discussion the following principal points were made:

·         The HAN acknowledged that further work was required to develop a mechanism to account for the funding of pupils moving from one school to another within the school year. It was requested that a report providing clarification should be made to the Forum’s next meeting.

·         The Forum discussed whether the £78k required to provide the balance of funding in 2011/12 should come from the secondary school portion of the DSG or from the DSG as a whole.  The conclusion was that the sum should be drawn from the DSG as a whole, noting HASH’s view that account needed to be taken of a child’s history throughout their schooling and that to fund something from one portion of the DSG rather than the whole DSG would set a precedent.

The HAN confirmed that the £78k was a one–off payment in 2011/12 to fund the existing pupils in the Unit.  Future provision would be financed by the proposed charging arrangements.

·         It was proposed that the wording of paragraph 3 of the report needed to be expanded slightly to ensure clarity.

RESOLVED:

That  (a)    the considerations already given to the requirement for 25 hour PRU provision and the cost implications for the current resource be acknowledged;

         (b)    the recommendation of HASH (2^nd Feb 2011) and the option selected for funding behavioural, social and emotional difficulties PRU provision as of April 1^st 2011, as set out in paragraph 3 of the report, as amended, be approved, meaning that there would be a charge to secondary schools of £3,000 per PRU place each financial year in addition to the age weighted pupil unit, from April 2011, in order to fund the legal requirement to provide pupils at Pupil Referral Units with 25 hours per week of education.  This would apply to new entrants from that date and would be proportionate to the remainder of the academic year, which would be confirmed as a daily rate.

         (c)     the principle be approved that DSG will provide the balance of funding up to a maximum of £78k during 2011/12 during the transition phase of this charging scheme;

(d)    the principle be endorsed that the same level of funding (as in recommendation (b)) should follow a pupil to their new school if they are permanently excluded and are admitted to a different Herefordshire school or are in receipt of pupils through the managed moves programme, but it be requested that greater clarification of how this model would work in practice be reported to the next meeting; and

(e)    current funding of £129,500 provided for medical tuition be maintained at the current level.