Agenda item

Report of the Director of Childrens and Education

The Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Children’s Services and Education, which set out the results of the consultation on proposed changes to the Fair Funding Scheme of Delegation (the Scheme) and sought approval for recommended changes to the Scheme and the Fair Funding Formula.

The report indicated that, under Section 48 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, Local Authorities (LAs) are required to have schemes of delegation which set out the financial controls and arrangements that will operate between schools and the LA.  Any proposed revisions to these schemes and / or the Fair Funding Formula must be the subject of consultation and require approval by the Schools Forum.

The Department for Education (DfE) introduced its National Funding Formula (NFF) for LAs in 2018/19, whereby mainstream school allocations for LAs were determined under the NFF approach, but LAs retained control over how they chose to distribute that funding amongst their schools.  In Coventry, since 2018/19, has been to mirror the NFF allocation for schools as far as possible.  This has provided all schools with annual increase at least in line with the maximum per pupil funding increase set out in the NFF, where this has been affordable.  This approach would also minimise funding volatility when local control and flexibility I removed from LAs.

In a standard funding cycle indicative NFF allocations and operational guides are published in July, with final NFF allocations being issued in December.  Due to the change in government and the timing of the Chancellor’s budget, LAs were informed that the 2025/26 indicative NFF allocations would not be published in July and, instead, would be delayed until the end of November 2024.  To support schools and LAs with financial planning, the DfE published a policy note and in this they announced there would not be any significant changes required to the operation of the local school funding formula for 2025/26 compared to 2024/25.

The Coventry Fair Funding Consultation document was circulated on 7^th November 2024 to Head Teachers, including Academy Head Teachers / Principals, Chairs of Governing Bodies, relevant Councillors, Trade Unions, Diocesan authorities, the Coventry Governors Association and members of the School’s Forum.  The consultation period ended after 2 weeks on 22^nd November 2024.

Stakeholder groups were briefed throughout the consultation period.  These included Primary Finance representative head teachers and the School’s Forum.  The consultation document also sought to act as an information document to school stakeholders regarding anticipated local budget pressures.

The Cabinet noted that the NFF continued to be in a ‘soft’ phase.  This meant that the DfE would run the NFF for each individual school and the total of Coventry schools’ allocations would become a total budget available for schools in Coventry.  The LA Is still required to go through the usual budget setting process and run the local schools funding formula for maintained schools and academies to distribute the resource.  From 2027/28, it is expected that the DfE will operate a direct NFF, through which it will allocate funding directly to the mainstream schools without LA involvement.

The recommended changes to the Fair Funding Formula and the Fair Funding Scheme of Delegation were summarised in Section 2 of the report.  The results of the consultation were set out in Appendix 1 to the report.  Appendix 2 gave details of the De-delegation levels for 2024/25, and Appendix 3 to the report provided the Fair Funding Consultation 2025/26.

RESOLVED that, the Cabinet:

1.  Approves the recommended changes to the Fair Funding Formula and Fair Funding Scheme of Delegation, which are summarised in Section 2 of the report.

2.  Delegates authority to the Director of Children’s and Education Services, following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, to make any necessary amendments to the final detail of these recommended changes, in order to comply with the School Finance (England) Regulations once full detail of the school funding settlement has been published by the Department for Education for 2025/26.  Any changes will be made following discussion with the School’s Forum as appropriate.