ITEM CMDI2
CABINET MEMBER FOR SCHOOLS IMPROVEMENT – 7 NOVEMBER 2007
FOLLOW ON REPORT ON THE FIRST YEAR OF DELEGATING THE STATEMENTING BUDGET
Report by the Director for Children, Young People & Families
Introduction
1. A report on the first year of delegating the statementing budget was presented to Cabinet in June 2007 (refer Annex 1 (download as .doc file)). The Cabinet requested a further report on the delegation of the statementing budget in the autumn, in time for any changes for April 2008. The report on the first year was presented at the SEN & Disabilities Partnership meeting, Schools Forum, and the SEN delegation working group in June and July 2007. Schools Forum requested that the views of all schools should be sought. The report, along with funding information for each school, was posted on the Schools News section of the intranet at the beginning of September to provide an opportunity for all schools to share their views. A four week period was given for responses with a reminder given a week before the deadline.
2. Schools were given an opportunity to comment on:
· how reducing the reliance on statements is affecting children in their school · whether children’s needs are being met where funds have been delegated and without the need for a Statement.
3. Nine responses were received, all from primary schools. One school commented that they were happy with the present arrangements; the other respondents raised several issues, not all of which were directly related to delegation of the budget. Although the issues have been raised by a very small number of people responses are provided at Annex 2 (download as .doc file).
4. As described in the report ‘A review of the first year of delegating the statementing budget’ presented to Cabinet in June 2007, the scheme appears to be achieving its objectives of allowing schools to manage their resources for SEN in the most appropriate way to support early, effective intervention. The scheme uses the existing SEN Index formula to allocate:
- all of the statementing budget to secondary schools - funding equivalent to the first 15 hours per week of teaching assistant support to most primary schools - funding equivalent to the first 5 hours per week of teaching assistant support for the hundred primary schools with the smallest whole school budgets as at April 2006.
RECOMMENDATION
5. The Cabinet Member for Schools Improvement is RECOMMENDED to:
(a) endorse the continued implementation of the delegation scheme;
(b) ask officers to update the hundred primary schools with the smallest whole school budgets every new funding cycle (the next being 2008 – 2011)
JANET TOMLINSON Director for Children, Young People & Families
Background Papers: Nil
Contact Officer: Janet Johnson, Service Manager, (SEN, Lead) Children & Young People. Tel: 01865 815129
October 2007
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