Agenda item

School Forum to note the report and the data provided.

The Forum received a report for information, which provided the HNB monitoring position as at 31st October 2021 projected to 31 March 2022 and special provision occupancy as at 30th November 2021.

 

HNB Budget 2020/21

 

The updated HNB grant for 2021/22, reported as at 31st August 2021, was £53.240m.

 

The DFE had further updated the grant allocation and had made a positive adjustment of £0.315m so the HNB grant currently stood at £53.555m.

 

The anticipated in year surplus as at 31st August 2021 projected to 31st March 2022 was £1.332m, reported in September, had now been revised to a surplus of £1.408m.

 

The balance bought forward as at 1st April 2021 was a £0.597m surplus.

 

Appendix 1 to the report showed the 2021/22 High Needs Block Budget Allocation, the actual expenditure as at 31 October 2021 and the variance from budget.

 

The Variances

 

Variation 1

 

Out of borough placements, other associated costs, showed a £20k saving and was due to the reduction in room hire costs for the delivery of support to students that were awaiting a school roll. During COVID these had been delivered virtually and from September 21 normal face to face delivery had resumed.

 

Variation 2

 

There had been an increase in EHCP assessments which had resulted in a projected overspend of £514k on the delegated funding provided to mainstream schools and academies. Sandwell Community School, additional funding of £200k had been included here to be prudent to fund pupils placed at SCS requiring top up that was not included in the funding already allocated. SCS had funded 180 places at £10k per place plus Top Up for 80 places. This area was currently under review by a Task and Finish Group.

 

Variation 3

 

High Point had opened on 1st September 2021. It had initially been thought that the place element would have to be met through the HNB. However, the DFE had clarified in July 2021 that this would be funded directly with no impact on Sandwell’s HNB.

 

Variation 4

 

An amount £480k from the Early Years Grant was used to offset the early support for pupils in private provider settings and those in Mainstream early years settings. An additional sum of £70K had been allocated in this financial year bringing the overall funding to £550k. The support for pupils in mainstream schools was set against the schools’ delegation and not shown separately. The £550k would be insufficient to cover the full costs of meeting the needs of the pupils in these early years settings. Questions had been raised at the SEND Consultation Working Group regarding the level of grant and the possibility that this could be increased going forward.

 

Variation 5

 

The total variances equated to a saving of £386k across 9 service areas. These were mainly due to staff turnover, maternity leave, opting out of the LA superannuation scheme and full-time budgeted posts covered by staff on reduced hours.

 

Variation 6

 

Preventing Secondary Exclusions Team had not been appointed to so there was a saving of £199k in 2021/22. This was part of the SEND Consultation and it had been agreed at last Schools Forum on 8 November 2021 that this would be used to fund the reintegration officer posts currently funded by schools through the exclusion levy. This would not impact on the HNB until next financial year so this will remain a saving in 2021/22.

 

Variation 7

 

Alternative Provision was budgeted at £843k in December 2020. Based on the leavers in July 2021, and the close monitoring of placements by the Alternative Provision Panel, the saving was currently predicted to be £310k. Any changes in this would be reported and evidenced in future monitoring reports.

 

Variation 8

 

SEN Developments was showing an underspend of £760k. This budget head currently covered independent appeals and reports, and any funding agreed that did not clearly fit onto any other budget head. It also held the HNB balancing figure of £440k, which was the difference between the calculated budgets as at 1st April 2021 and the HNB Grant initial settlement 2021/22. An underspend of £449k had been reported on the previous monitoring and the increase was predominantly due to the additional grant received of £315k.

 

Variation 9

 

There was a favourable variance of £191k against the Children with Disabilities Team contribution. The HNB had previously contributed £95,800 to the CWD Team and questions had been raised previously about what this contribution was for. As the contribution had not been required in 2020/21, but was accrued, this had now been reversed and the funding had also been transferred back into the HNB. It had also been reported that this funding will not be required in 2021/22 or any subsequent years.

 

Variation 10

 

There was a favourable variance of £97k against the Non-Statutory SEN contribution from the HNB due to staff turnover.

 

Focus Provision and Special School Place Funding

 

Appendix 2 to the report showed the Focus Provision, Special School and PRU commissioned places for the period 1/4/21-31/3/22, together with the average occupancy for the for the period 1/4/21-30/11/21.

 

A total of 1,103 commissioned places had been funded and allocated to schools and PRUs of which 79 were utilised by other local authority’s pupils. An additional 25 places had been budgeted for which may be allocated to special schools should they exceed their commissioned allocations on average over the financial year.

 

Table 1, below, showed the new provisions / expansions in special provision from 1st September 2021.

 

 

The Focus Provisions overall average under occupancy as at 31st August 2021 was 12%. The under occupancy as at 30th November 2021 was 4%. Primary under occupancy was 1.6% while Secondary was 7.1%.

 

There were no vacant places across the 4 Special Schools.

 

The commissioned places were the places that the LA had purchased at the beginning of the financial year and were not the actual numbers that the schools can accommodate (PAN).

 

The pupil tracking data for PRUs was now done on the same basis as the Focus Provision and Special schools for consistent reporting. The total places commissioned for the period 1/4/21-31/3/22 across the 3 PRUs were 255. The average occupancy as at 30th November 2021 projected to 31st March 2022 was 179, but the actual foot fall was 328. The average occupancy may change over the course of time due to the nature of the pupils entering the PRUs and the duration of their enrolment.

 

M Jarrett commended Officers’ hard work to get the Council to a point where the budget was operating at a surplus, given the increases in demand over the last couple of years. However, Officers’ projections for future years were not as likely to be as favourable. Schools Forum would need to take this into account and look at what mitigations could be put in place to help address such concerns. He also advised that the Forum may need to enter into consultation with the DfE, taking into account the likely financial pressures going forward from 2023/24 onwards.

 

Members considered the report and queried the following, in particular: -

A Forum Member requested further information / detail to come back to the Forum in relation to variation 2 and 4.7 of the report. In particular, he wished to establish what SCS were claiming, to ensure places weren’t being claimed where they shouldn’t be, so that various Primary and Secondary PRUs could be compared, along with the costs allocated to each.

 

S Lilley advised that a task and finish group had been established to look into this matter, however it had not met for a while for a variety of reasons. He advised that, as he was soon to be leaving his post, another Officer would need to be sought to lead on this matter. J Gill and M Tallents agreed to pick this matter up. In addition, J Gill agreed to prepare a report for M Jarrett to bring him up to speed on the matter.

 

A Forum Member queried the costs associated with variation 4 and whether this required a closer look, taking into account that, in general, more was spent on this than had been budgeted for.

 

J Gill advised that she would be able to detail this in a report once the end of the financial year outturn figures were available. M Tallents advised that the figures for the early years intervention grant for those children going into Reception would also need to be included within this report.

 

In relation to the fact that High Point was being funded centrally, the Chair queried why this the case and if it was intended to carry on the same next year.

 

J Gill advised that, to the best of her knowledge at present, it was set to continue to be funded centrally as no notification had been received as yet to indicate otherwise, at least until the point where capacity had been reached. Where capacity had been reached, it would then transfer to the HNB and then ‘passported’ out accordingly, similar to how it operated with Academies.

 

Agreed that the contents of the report be noted.