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ITEM CA13
CABINET
MEETING - 20 SEPTEMBER 2005
DELEGATION
OF STATEMENTING BUDGET
Report by
Director for Learning & Culture
Background
- A Statement of
Special Educational Needs (SEN) describes a child’s SEN and the provision
required to meet them. Statements were intended to apply to around 2%
of the school population although there is a wide range in the levels
of statementing between authorities. Nationally 3.1% of children now
have Statements; in Oxfordshire the figure has remained at around 2.4%
for several years. The Statement is issued by an officer following a
statutory assessment that involves the school, parents and other professionals
and typically takes between 12 and 18 weeks. These assessments, and
the issuing and review of Statements, are heavily prescribed by law
and are necessarily bureaucratic. In 2002 the Audit Commission estimated
that the cost of a statutory assessment process alone was £2,400. Oxfordshire
carries out around 350 assessments per year and the majority are used
to provide relatively small amounts of additional money to mainstream
schools.
- A number of reports
and policy initiatives from the Department for Education and Skills
(DfES), Ofsted and the Audit Commission in recent years have encouraged
LEAs to move away from reliance on statutory assessment and statements
as a means of allocating resources. Some of these are listed at Annex
1. Ofsted
has described the current process nationally as "unwieldy, bureaucratic,
time-consuming and costly". Although Ofsted has recognised that Oxfordshire’s
SEN practice is good, there is still more that could be done to reduce
bureaucracy and improve provision. SEN funding systems should deliver
funding to schools as early as possible, as transparently as possible,
as equitably as possible, as objectively as possible and with the minimum
bureaucracy. This paper describes the exploratory work carried out on
the funding of statements, following the Scrutiny Review of Special
Educational Needs and the consultation on Oxfordshire’s SEN Strategy.
It makes recommendations about a formal consultation on proposals to
delegate a large part of the Statementing budget to schools in line
with DfES guidance.
Research,
Development and Consultation
- The development
of a model for the delegation of the statementing budget has been carried
out by a working group of officers, headteachers, governors, SEN Coordinators
(SENCos), psychologists and others. It has drawn on published material
from the DfES and other authorities and on informal discussion/consultations
with DfES advisors, heads, SENCos, parents and other LEAs. The results
of the recent informal consultation are reported below and add to the
earlier feedback received while developing various possible models.
- The model proposed
for informal consultation was arrived at after consideration of a range
of options including those used in some other LEAs. It was recognised
that there is no certain way of ensuring that funds for SEN are accurately
targeted at individual pupils or even shared appropriately between schools.
Indeed the whole concept of some children being "special" and others
not, begs the question of how one defines into neat categories the abilities
and traits of the whole range of human beings. It was therefore concluded
that the key objective was to ensure that a formula for SEN funding
would differentiate between schools according to their level of needs.
Various ways of measuring relative needs could be employed but the Oxfordshire
SEN Index had been widely accepted by schools and, more recently, was
praised by Ofsted as a fair and transparent tool. It is used for distributing
SEN funds already and has been refined in the light of suggestions from
schools. It was therefore chosen as a preferred means of distributing
money that is currently held centrally. The SEN Index is not perfect.
No formula is. The same can be said of the whole basis of formula funding
of schools (or LEAs!) However, it does incorporate three measures of
need, all of which are accepted as valid on their own but each is used
as a benchmark for checking the others. It also has the virtue of being
familiar to schools, whereas funding schemes based on eligibility for
free school meals or extensive audits of children would be totally new
and are either less reflective of relative need or are enormously bureaucratic.
- Throughout there
has been a recognition, reinforced by research, that whilst parents
must not be denied their right to seek an assessment (and, where appropriate,
a statement) the current system of funding through statements is a far
from accurate means of allocating resources to the greatest need. Local
policy decisions rather than levels of need influence the number of
statements maintained by local authorities.
Consultation
Process
- Informal consultation
took place in June and July 2005. The document ‘Reducing Reliance
on Statements – Proposals to delegate the statementing budget’ (Annex
2) (download as .doc file) was
circulated to all schools for the attention of Headteachers, SENCos,
Chairs of Governors and the SEN Governor. It was also circulated widely
to colleagues in Learning & Culture, Social & Health Care and
Health. Briefings on the proposals were provided for Headteachers and
Chairs of Governors, SENCos, the Schools Forum, voluntary organisations
and parents at a Parent Partnership conference.
Feedback
- 66 written responses
to the consultation were received. 12 were from secondary schools, representing
35% of all secondary schools. Of these, 5 might have benefited financially
from the proposals and 7 might have received less money. 47 primary
schools responded, representing 19% of all primary schools; 19 of these
might have received more money and 28 might have received less. 7 responses
were received from various other colleagues including educational psychologists,
partnerships currently receiving further additional provision and a
parent governor. Only replies from schools were counted in the results
to each question but comments from all respondents have been analysed.
The results are included in Annex 3 (download
as .doc file), and samples of comments are included in Annex
4 (download as .doc file).
- The principles
set out in the consultation are mainly about equity, transparency, early
intervention, flexibility and minimal bureaucracy. Each was supported
by at least 70% of respondents.
- 83% (10 out of
12) of secondary school respondents agreed with the principle
that the existing SEN Index should form the basis for delegating the
statementing budget. There was strongest support for the proposal to
delegate all statementing funding for secondary schools through
the SEN Index, rather than partial use of the index with some money
retained centrally.
- One third of responding
primary schools supported the principle that the existing SEN
Index should form the basis for delegation. Two thirds of those primary
schools that did not support it were ones who might have received less
money. In this initial consultation there was slightly more support
for a partial use of the index rather than full use, but respondents
suggested that the threshold was set too high. Reservations were expressed
about the financial impact on small schools and concerns expressed that
the SEN Index does not reflect the number of statemented children in
a school. Suggestions included an audit approach, allocating to partnerships,
or separating the funding for pupils with high level complex needs from
the index. Some respondents acknowledged that the proposals would improve
flexibility, speed of response and range of provision.
- The informal consultation
sought suggestions as to how a delegated funding scheme could recognise
the exceptional circumstances that would face small schools and/or
schools with small SEN budgets. Many helpful suggestions were
made which focused on delegation for low levels of need with central
‘top up’ for children with greater needs. The comments are included
in Annex 4.
- There was mixed
response to the suggestion that there should be a phasing of changes
to schools’ budgets over two years. Overall 37% supported the suggestion
and 47% did not. Comments reflected the tension between schools wanting
increased funding as soon as possible and those fearing sudden reductions
in funding.
- 70% of respondents
supported the suggestion of safeguarding the total amount of
money for SEN to be made available to all schools over a fixed period
(initially three years). Schools felt that this would help with budget
planning but wanted to know what would happen after the three year period.
Requests were also made for increased funding during the change over
process until any saving from the centre could be passed onto schools.
- The informal consultation
also sought views on the additional funding for SEN currently
allocated to a few schools or partnerships for Moderate Learning Difficulties
Units or enhanced provision. It was suggested that the funding could
be re-distributed equitably across primary and secondary schools using
the SEN Index rather than being allocated to a few favoured schools,
often for historical reasons. 50% of secondary schools supported this
suggestion, 17% had no opinion either way and 33% definitely did not
support it. The response from primary schools was a more even split,
with 48% supporting the suggestion and 43% against. Some schools currently
receiving additional partnership or ‘unit’ funding expressed strong
views on the need for continuation, citing the positive impact it had
made for children with SEN. Suggestions were given about further developing
this practice for all schools and partnerships. Other schools supported
the principle of equity in funding distribution rather than the current
additional provision for a small minority of schools.
- To address the
authority’s monitoring and accountability function a number of
performance measures were suggested. Respondents generally supported
these proposals, averaging 75% agreement across all measures. Two proposals
received significantly lower support: 56% of all respondents supported
the measure relating to the number of complaints and similarly 55% supported
the measure related to the number of exclusions. However, the authority
already monitors these.
Proposals
for consultation
- The essence
of the proposal is that a significantly increased amount of the
statementing budget should be delegated to schools, who would then use
it to meet the needs of most children on their rolls, without recourse
to statutory assessment. Schools, having received their share of the
money for meeting the needs of most pupils, would then have the opportunity
and resources to intervene early in a child’s education. They need not
wait for children to have progressed over a range of hurdles, at each
step having to demonstrate how badly they are doing, before resources
are allocated.
- Where parents
are satisfied that a school’s provision meets their child’s needs they
would be unlikely to request a statutory assessment. The great majority
of requests for assessments and statements currently come from schools,
not parents. Parents could still request assessments and these would
be carried out, where children met current assessment criteria. However,
the majority of resulting statements would normally identify resources
already delegated to schools. The provision then described in the statement,
might, or might not, be what was being provided by the school, prior
to the issue of the statement. The statement would continue to be the
legally binding document.
- It is suggested
that the principles set out in the informal consultation should
be incorporated into the formal consultation.
- The methodology
for distributing the existing budget (plus any additional budget provision
made by the County Council) is clearly key to the success of the scheme.
There has been widespread acceptance of Oxfordshire’s SEN Index as a
means of distributing the existing SEN delegated budget and the extension
of its use appears logical, and was strongly supported by secondary
schools, as it reflects the incidence of the great majority of learning
and behaviour difficulties. Modifications to the proposals, resulting
from schools feedback, may address primary school’s reservations about
the proposals.
- Secondary schools
appear to see a strong case for delegating the whole of the statement
budget as it applies to them, although there would be winners and losers,
initially. This is unlikely to be more than 2% of the school budget
and would come at a time when overall school budgets are increasing.
The informal consultation highlighted the issue of challenging behaviour
and a separate consultation on this is to be undertaken.
- For primary
schools, which are much smaller than secondaries, there is less
facility to absorb changes that would result from the new methodology.
The scheme now being proposed for consultation would distinguish between
primary schools with smaller budgets for SEN and those with larger ones.
Just over 100 schools receive less than £15k from their SEN Index or
less than 0.25% of the current total SEN funding. They could be treated
as now, in that they would meet the needs of all children except those
who require more than five hours per week of 1:1 support (or equivalent).
There would be no further delegation to them.
- Larger primary
schools, or those with larger SEN budgets, would receive increased delegation
and would be expected to meet needs up to 15 hours support per week.
This is lower than the 20 hours threshold in the informal consultation.
Clearly, lower thresholds mean that more money has to be retained
centrally for "top ups" and the positive impact of delegation would
therefore be reduced. It would result in nearly 400 of the 825 primary
school statements continuing to be centrally funded. They would be for
children with higher levels of need or for children in small schools
/ schools with small SEN budgets.
- There are, from
time to time, unusually large numbers of children with high levels
of need attending one school. Although the proposals address this by
continuing to make provision to "top up" provision for children with
high needs, there may still be rare cases where a school has an exceptional
clustering of children with very high needs. If a mechanism were to
be developed to address this, for example, a small contingency fund
controlled by headteachers, there would be a danger this would be seen
as a mechanism for all schools faced with what they see as "exceptional"
circumstances. Nevertheless, it is suggested that there should be consultation
on this issue.
- Although the response
in the informal consultation was mixed it is worth seeking views on
the phasing of any changes. Two years is probably enough to dampen
losses for some schools but not too long for others to wait for increases.
- It is difficult
to justify provision of additional funding for some schools except
by reference to a measure of need. It is therefore suggested that, in
addition to the consultation on delegation of the statementing budget,
schools are also consulted on a proposal to redistribute amongst all
schools the money currently allocated to a few.
- It is suggested
that the performance measures listed in the informal consultation
should be incorporated into a formal consultation and that these should
inform any future adjustments to the scheme.
- It is anticipated
that the outcome of the consultation will be reported back to the Cabinet
in December 2005.
RECOMMENDATION
- The Cabinet
is RECOMMENDED to agree to a formal consultation on the scheme outlined
in paragraphs 16 to 26 of this report.
KEITH
BARTLEY
Director for
Learning & Culture
Background
Papers: Nil
Contact
Officer: Simon Adams, Senior Education Officer (SEN) 01865 810602
September
2005
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