Minutes:
Neill Butler (NB) noted that schools will be very aware of the real cost pressures at the moment. The main national issue is that the government still intends to move to move to a minimum starting salary for qualified teachers of £30k by the end of this parliament in December 2024. There is no indication
of how this will be funded or what the impact will be on pay differentials for teachers on higher pay points.
NB referred to the consultation on the national funding formula which took place during the summer. The main impact on local authorities is the requirement to move by 10% each year on any local formula factors that are not up to the full NFF level. The main area for Slough is the mobility factor which is funded slightly lower than NFF. NB indicated that the impact on Slough allocations of changing the mobility factor rate to 100% of the NFF would be around £200k additional funding into schools’ budgets. The main reason for the impact not being higher is the loss of minimum funding guarantee for some schools, giving a net impact of just £200k.
MW noted that the reason the mobility factor has not been previously adopted in the local formula was that although Slough schools have a very mobile population, the actual criteria didn't reflect the actual nature of the churn seen. MW advised that it would be interesting at some point to see the modelling and the impact on individual schools.