Meeting documents

ITEM EX6

EXECUTIVE - 11 DECEMBER 2001

FURTHER DELEGATION OF BUDGETS TO SCHOOLS

Report by Chief Education Officer, Director of Business Support & County Treasurer

Background

1. Education Committee on 10 October 2001 considered a report on the delegation requirements for 2002/03 and future years. Regulations issued by the Secretary of State require that for the financial year 2002/03 87% of the funds defined as being spent for schools shall be delegated/ devolved to schools. The LEA is limited in the ways in which it can achieve the target. Members agreed to consult schools on proposals to delegate the school meals budget and the special educational needs statementing budget. Details of the proposals are reproduced at Annex 1 and Annex2.
2. The LEA wrote to all headteachers and chairs of governors informing them of the proposals. They were asked to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with the proposals and were given the opportunity to provide further comments by 23 November 2001. This stage of the consultation process is complete. The responses are tabulated in Annex 3 and the following paragraphs summarise the responses made.

The Need to Delegate a Further £3.5m

3. 89% of schools agreed that in order to hit the DfES target of 87% it would be necessary to delegate a further £3.5m in respect of the budgets for Schools Meals and Special Educational Needs (SEN) Statementing. In the comments accompanying the responses, one school questions why other options were not given. These are the only two budgets which can be realistically delegated at this time to enable the targets to be met.

School Meals

4. Delegating school meals to primary and special schools will be more complicated than in the case of secondary schools due to additional costs such as transporting meals from production kitchens. 94% of schools agreed that the formula used should be as set out in paragraph 12 of Annex 1, but it should be amended to include a factor to recognise the extra transport costs in respect of schools with serveries. It is proposed to allocate each school with a servery a fixed allocation of £1,875.
5. In 2000/01, when freely consulted on the choice to have school meals delegated, primary and special schools were almost unanimously against the proposal. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the current consultation some 97% have agreed with the proposal that County Facilities Management (CFM) should provide a simple buy back option, whereby schools would pass back their formula allocations. In the subsidiary questions, where schools were specifically asked how they intended to provide the service, 89% would buy back from CFM, 5% tender for contract, and 6% directly manage the service.

Special Educational Needs Statementing

6. In effect, the changes proposed in respect of SEN Statementing will only impact upon their accounting treatment. Schools will receive their SEN statementing allocation as part of their budget allocation, rather than as adjustments to expenditure at three points during the financial year. 97% of schools were in support of the proposals.
7. The LEA received a letter from the DfES, dated 22 November, setting out targets for 2002/03 and changes to the Fair Funding Regulations for 2002/03. A precis of this letter appears in an annex to the report on the Delegation Formula consultation elsewhere on this agenda. One section of the letter dealt specifically with SEN Statementing.
8. In the past, some authorities have delegated SEN Statementing to groups or clusters of schools. The DfES has felt that compliance with the 87% target could jeopardise these "effective" arrangements. Under the new LEA and school funding arrangements scheduled to come into effect in 2003/04 no detailed decisions on the treatment of SEN funding have been made as yet. Therefore, for those authorities that have delegated SEN Statementing funding to clusters of schools, the formula for calculating the 87% will be adjusted to treat the arrangements as if the funds were in fact delegated. This does not affect Oxfordshire.

Next Steps

9. The initial consultation with schools was formative, in that their views were sought in general terms. A significant majority of schools were in favour of the proposals without modification. It is necessary now to consult schools formally on the proposals, with a view to the delegation going ahead from 1 April 2002.

RECOMMENDATIONS

10. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to consult schools formally on the proposal that with effect from 1 April 2002 the budgets for Schools Meals and SEN Statementing will be delegated as set out in the report.

CHRIS GRAY
County Treasurer

Background Papers: Consultation letter to Headteachers and Chairs of Governor

Contact Officer: Matt Bowmer Tel: Oxford 815474

December 2001