I am pleased to be able to introduce the Schools Budget for 2023-24. The Schools Budget is using the National Funding Formula (NFF) which has now been the case in Staffordshire since 2018.
The 2022 Autumn statement announced that the core schools budget will increase by £2bn in 2023-24 over and above the totals announced at the 2021 Spending Review, £400m of the additional £2bn will be allocated to high needs fundings, with the rest being allocated to schools’ budgets. Mainstream schools will be allocated additional funding through the Mainstream Schools Additional Grant (MSAG).
The Government has increased the core pupil led NFF factors by 2.4% and the deprivation factors by 4.3% The funding protections have also been increased, with the minimum per pupil funding level rising to £4,405 for a primary pupil, £5,503 for a Key Stage 3 (KS3) pupil and £6,033 for a KS4 pupil. The changes to sparsity funding implemented in 2022/2023 are now part of the NFF and included in the funding factors. In line with the DfE guidance, the 2023/2024 Minimum Funding Guarantee (MFG) is set at the maximum of 0.5% with any gains being capped at 2.6%.
The Government is addressing the extra costs due to the pay award for teachers. Staffordshire mainstream schools will receive a MSAG in 2023/24 worth c.£21m. Overall, taking the DSG allocations and the supplementary funding together there is an increase in mainstream school funding, for the 5-16 age group, of £2.6 billion (£39m for Staffordshire). Nationally this is equivalent to a 5.6% cash increase in funding per pupil on average.
The additional funding is welcomed, but we will continue to push for fair funding for education in Staffordshire to give our schools, teachers and children the resources they need. You have my assurance that we will continue to work as hard as we can with the F40 and other networks to secure a fairer distribution of education funding for the future.
We know that the disruption to education as a result of COVID-19 continues to impact on children and young people and it remains as important as it has ever been that all schools share their best practice and local innovation so that we get the very best impact for pupils particularly those that have been most adversely affected by the pandemic.
The Government reforms of how local authorities are funded to support the delivery of their school improvement functions - to monitor the performance of maintained schools, broker school improvement provision, and exercise their statutory intervention powers, means that no further grant funding is available. In Staffordshire we have not requested any de-delegation for 2023/24 and will undertake desktop analysis of performance information from September 2023. Maintained schools will now be responsible for procuring or commissioning their own external quality assurance as well as school improvement support, along with the non-statutory elements of the education welfare services.
As reported to Schools Forum, Staffordshire continues to face pressures in the High Needs Block (HNB). These have mainly arisen from an increase in numbers and, therefore, costs relating to high needs top-up funding to pupils in both mainstream and special schools, as well as the independent sector.
In 2022 we introduced the Education Banding Tool across mainstream and special schools to calculate the education element of the top-up funding for children and young people with Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). This was introduced to support a fair, equitable and consistent funding mechanism linked to EHCPs. In 2023/2024, having been in place for a year, we will undertake a review of the EBT against the original objectives including the cost neutral impact to the HNB. This could result in changes to the rates of the banding levels provided to schools. In 2023/24 the HNB in Staffordshire is £127m an increase of £12m from 2022/23 (including an additional £5m as being Staffordshire’s proportion of the £400m national allocated funding in the 2022 Autumn Statement outlined above). Whilst the additional funding is significant this reflects the increasing pressures within the sector and will not close the existing funding gap. To help support the budget pressure and as part of the DSG Deficit Management Plan, a request was made to transfer 0.5% from the schools block - equivalent to c £3.1m. This was refused by Schools Forum as was the subsequent disapplication request to the Secretary of State for Education. This has limited the capacity to fund cost rises across the sector given the existing DSG reserve ‘overdraft’ which is anticipated to be c £14m in deficit at the end of the current year, and a further overspend is forecast for 2023/24. The Council will continue to implement the Deficit Management Plan to address and mitigate the existing shortfall as far as possible. This has been shared with and supported by Schools Forum.
The pressures on school budgets should also prompt those schools with reserves to plan robustly for their use. For now, our approach continues to be to provide schools with financial flexibility to manage uncertainty and to exercise maximum local control over use of their resources.
I firmly believe that school leaders are best placed to manage their resources well and to meet the challenges ahead over the next financial year and medium term. I have every confidence that, despite the pressures, Staffordshire schools will continue to demonstrate excellent financial management and use every pound under their control effectively and for the benefit of children and young people’s learning.
Finally, I would like, once again, to thank your representatives on the Schools Forum for their contribution to the development of this budget.
Neelam Bhardwaja
Director for Children and Families
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These documents have been prepared to support the 2023-24 schools' budget information. Please look through these documents carefully, they should answer many of the questions you may have.