The Fair Funding Challenge Margaret Judd Sufficiency and Funding Manager Dorset County Council

The case for fair funding The funding of schools should be fairer and more transparent, enabling schools to meet the needs of their pupils. Extra resources should clearly follow those pupils who might need extra help and support, such as pupils from poorer backgrounds. Our current system falls well short of this. Over recent years, more money has gone into schools’ budgets overall but its distribution has not been fair. The Importance of Teaching White Paper, December 2010

Variation in Total Budget share plus Grants ACA deflated between Medium Size Primary Schools in Local Authorities with High, Medium and Low levels of pupils on FSM A Low FSM school in a High FSM area can actually receive a higher amount than the Highest FSM school in Low and Medium FSM areas. This will be caused by a combination of national and local factors – both the way the authorities have been funded and the way the authorities are funding schools. School FSM levels Pupils with similar characteristics do not receive the same support

Who are f40? Lowest funded education authorities – Currently 37 members Lobbying for fair funding since 1996 (19 years) Recently developed a formula for allocating £40bn of Dedicated Schools Grant Includes other proposals for clearing up the funding mess Politically neutral

Where are we now? Government distributes £40bn for education through Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). DSG has 3 blocks: schools, early years, high needs Basis for the distribution is historic LA formulae vary widely Some convergence through 2013/14 funding reforms Previous government acknowledged that school funding is unfair and consulted on introducing a national funding formula Initial step - additional £390m in 2015/16. To be baselined Manifesto commitments to make schools funding fairer and the amount of money following your child into school will be protected. As the number of pupils increases, so will the amount of money in our schools.

The funding gap – scale The ‘gap’ between the highest and lowest funded LAs has grown: ASCL – 10 best funded areas receive on average £6,297 per pupil compared with an average of £4,208 for the 10 worst funded areas 1997/98 £ 2012/13 £ 2015/16* £ Highest3,5558,052 9, Lowest2,0734,429 4, Difference1,4823,623 4, % Difference 71% 81% 95% * These figures are not directly comparable with earlier years 2015/16 figures are after addition of £390m fairer schools funding

The funding gap – some illustrations SchoolGloucestershireDorsetTower Hamlets Secondary Budget allocation (£) Per pupil Gloucester academy: 741 4,038,000 5,443 Wey Valley School: 777 3,814,000 4, ,126,000 8,256 Primary Budget allocation (£) Per pupil Grangefield: ,000 3,634 St Mary the Virgin: ,400 3, ,165,000 5,604 Primary Budget allocation (£) Per pupil Christchurch Chalford: ,000 4,914 Cheselbourne: ,800 5, ,000 7,630

The problem of low funding Impact of ‘flat cash’ per pupil Lower starting point for the ‘have nots’ The risks: – Redundancy costs – Deficits – Impact on vulnerable pupils – Adverse Ofsted judgements – No flexibility

Managing a 12% reduction - the options for schools Primary: – Shared headships – Larger classes – Larger mixed age group classes Secondary: – Reduce management structure, increase contact ratio – Larger teaching groups – Reduce curriculum – Mixed year groups

The f40 position School funding is a mess Basic structure - DSG block system and allowable formula factors – are fine But system is over-regulated (esp. high needs) Need for fairness now very urgent Needs a national funding formula Phase in over 3 years Flexible approach to Minimum Funding Guarantee

What do we mean by a national funding formula? Options for central government: 1.Allocate a budget to 24,300 schools from a central agency 2.Distribute the national budget to local authorities and allow some local discretion

The f40 formula approach Formula allocation to LAs Takes no account of current patterns of spending, or of early years or high needs provision Separate factors for the 3 DSG blocks Allow local discretion on: – The formula – Movement between blocks – Central funding Short transition – 3 years High accountability, low regulation

The f40 formula – the idea To demonstrate that: A formula approach to funding education is feasible The current distribution is seriously flawed and unfair Model produced for 2014/15, now updated to 2015/16 for the Schools Block F40 believes that the model achieves these aims, is fair, based on reasonable assumptions and can be defended against challenge

Some other issues Employment and other costs increases and F40 still arguing for: – Common funding year for maintained schools and academies – Reduction in regulation and administrative cost – Rates to be removed from school funding or funded at LA level for maintained schools and academies More research (and flexibility) needed on sparsity

Conclusions Funding inequality is a problem Unfairness has been acknowledged for a long time. Now a firm commitment to address Awaiting government announcements – But the first is that it wont be until September 17 at the earliest Key issue on pace of transition and application to all funding blocks