Meeting documents

Cabinet
Tuesday, 20 September 2005

CA200905-13

Return to Agenda

Division(s): N/A

ITEM CA13

CABINET MEETING - 20 SEPTEMBER 2005

DELEGATION OF STATEMENTING BUDGET

Report by Director for Learning & Culture

Background

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Research, Development and Consultation

  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Consultation Process

  8. 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.
  9. Feedback

  10. 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).
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. Proposals for consultation

  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. It is suggested that the principles set out in the informal consultation should be incorporated into the formal consultation.
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
  26. 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.
  27. 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.
  28. 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.
  29. 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.
  30. 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.
  31. It is anticipated that the outcome of the consultation will be reported back to the Cabinet in December 2005.
  32. RECOMMENDATION

  33. 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

Return to TOP