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ITEM EX14

EXECUTIVE – 22 JANUARY 2002

SPECIALIST SCHOOL STATUS

Report by Acting Chief Education Officer

1. The Education Committee 9 October 2001 resolved:

"In light of the increased level of funding and other benefits associated with specialist school status, which include the significant potential for improving school standards, this Council:

1. recommends to all those Oxfordshire secondary schools that have not already gained specialist status that they should explore this possibility;
2. requests the Chief Education Officer to:

1. give appropriate support to those schools wishing to apply for specialist school status;
2. identify the level and seniority of officer support necessary and report back to the Executive and political groups on the implications; and
3. in the case of those schools which do not wish or fail to achieve specialist status to examine ways of increasing their funding.
   
   
3. set a target of 75% of schools having achieved or "working towards" specialist status by 2002."
   
   

Background

2. A note giving a general description of the Specialist School Scheme is attached as Annex A.

Funding

3. Schools with specialist status receive additional funds from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), which have to be spent against a very detailed development plan over four years, in order to meet targets in those plans. These targets are in the main quantifiable. Schools which do not meet their targets have their funding withdrawn (this has happened to one specialist school in Oxfordshire). The money is thus fairly tightly ringfenced and has to be used for activities which are clearly additional, and which the school would not otherwise undertake, i.e. not as a general enhancement to their budget. A significant proportion of the funds is directed to the community development plan, that is, work with people other than pupils at the school (e.g. primary pupils, partner secondary school pupils, local organisations, and general population). Funding is in the form of a capital grant of £100,000 in the first year, and a revenue grant each year for four years, with the amount dependent on the size of the school. For an average sized secondary school of 1,000 pupils, the annual grant is £120,000.
4. As a condition of making an application schools have to demonstrate that they have raised £50,000.

Possible Funding Options for Schools Working Towards Specialist Status

5. Under Fair Funding regulations, it is not possible to fund through the LEA formula schools which have not been successful in obtaining grant funding for specialist school status. The formula regulations specify a list of factors that may be used by an LEA in funding its schools. No factor would allow for differential funding for pupils in non-specialist schools. Similar obstacles exist in terms of allocating a one-off sum in lieu of the capital grant received by specialist schools.
6. A suggestion has been made that it should be possible to create a trust fund at arm’s length from the LEA, which could then grant fund schools to achieve the desired aim.
7. There are a number of difficulties with this proposal.

1. Firstly, there is the question of the status and terms of the trust. To be treated by Government as being independent of the Council, the trust would need to be at sufficient arm’s length. As such, the Council would not have control over how the trust deployed its resources. Since the idea is that the Council would set up such a trust fund by way of a capital grant, this would require the Council to be clear that the funds allocated were being used in a particular way. It would appear that these two requirements are in conflict with one another. Legal advice has been sought from the Solicitor to the Council on this issue.
2. Assuming that the above difficulty can be overcome, given other competing demands for limited capital resources and the significant budget pressures faced in the revenue budget, there is still the major problem of where the initial capital required to set up the trust fund would come from. A considerable amount of money would be required:

1. to provide a one-off capital grant to assist the application of secondary schools applying for specialist school status at £25,000 per school would be £625,000 spread over, say, two years;
2. to attempt to fund those schools not succeeding in achieving special status at the same level as specialist schools would be prohibitive (£120,000 per annum per school on average).
   
   
3. Whilst it might be possible to create a trust fund at arm’s length for the Authority and for this them to be regarded by the DfES as independent of the Authority, it does not follow that the DfES would necessarily accept the grant funding allocated by the trust to schools seeking specialist status as being genuine private sector funding. Discretion as to what schools are approved for specialist status resides with the DfES. The trust fund may be seen for what it was, as merely a device to launder LEA funds as being private sector funds.
   
   

Schools’ Responses

8. As part of the consultation on the Review of the Formula for 2002/03, schools were asked whether the Council should attempt to provide additional funding for those schools that are unsuccessful in bidding for government funding for specialist school status. A majority of the schools responding to the consultation did not support the proposal. Their reasons included:

• Schools which had already succeeded in gaining specialist status felt it would be unfair on them, as they have already expended large amounts of time and effort.
• Primary schools opposed the use of public money to support the scheme because this would reduce the amount available for education funding generally.
• Schools would not support any central direction as to what specialism schools should apply for, even in return for help with the funding. They currently work together so that they are not in direct competition for specialisms with their neighbours; this broadly ensures a mix of specialisms across the county. (The development of the Oxfordshire Community Network (OCN) broadband network will assist the spreading of good practice and specialist expertise across the County and make geographical location less of an issue.
• If schools that had made unsuccessful applications received additional funds from the LEA, this might prejudice other applications from Oxfordshire schools at DfES.

9. Experience suggests that fundraising from the public sector is more likely to be successful on a local, personalised basis. That is, businesses like to support and be associated with their local schools. Sponsorship often results from personal contact between business leaders and headteachers or governors. However, it might be worth exploring, on a pilot basis, whether private sector consultations would be able to provide a more professional approach to fund raising.

Officer Support

10. At present, an Education Officer has this area as one of her two specialist areas of work; the other is 16+ education. Since officer specialisms comprise 10% of their work and 16+ is a large area, this means little time is allocated to specialist schools at present. The officer provides advice and guidance on request to heads, governors and management teams on making an application. She also collates information about the current position across the county. In addition, subject advisers provide advice on the curriculum elements of applications as appropriate to the specialism.
11. Additional support which would be helpful to schools if more time were made available might include:

• practical support with preparing and writing development plans;

• disseminating good practice among schools, both specialist and other;

• developing an effective network of specialist schools to extend their work in the community;

• assisting schools resubmitting bids or seeking redesignation in subsequent rounds;

• developing contribution made by specialist schools to county lifelong learning strategy.

12. The Education Revenue Budget and Medium Term Financial Plan report to the Learning & Culture Scrutiny Committee on 18 December included, as part of the other service pressures, a bid for £32,000 pa (1fte) for a two-year post in respect of this support role.

Developing a Plan for Specialist Schools

13. At present the government is aiming for a target of 45% of secondary schools to have specialist status by 2006. Oxfordshire has eight of its 36 with specialist status – 22%.
14. Each potential specialist school has to have at least one non-specialist secondary school as a named partner in its community development plan. This could place a numerical constraint on the County of 50%. However, the development of broadband technology means that partners in future will not have to be geographically proximate, and do not have to be within the same LEA.
15. As indicated above, it is in schools’ interests as they plan their submissions to create a range of specialisms across the County, and their indicated plans will naturally lead to that.

Financial and Staff Implications

16. The financial implications of attempting to assist schools in providing capital grants and/or revenue support via a trust fund for those schools working towards specialist status, or which had been unsuccessful in bidding, are detailed above. In terms of assisting schools with fund raising, there would be a cost in contracting with a consultant to undertake this task. This would need to be quantified.

  RECOMMENDATIONS

17. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to consider whether:

1. further work should be carried out to explore the potential for a trust fund; and
2. to instruct officers to explore further the scope for using an external fund raising consultant.