Agenda item

JC advised that item 7 concerns the primary-secondary funding ratio, originating from a letter sent to me as Chair  of Forum by Pete Rowe on behalf of the Slough Primary Heads Association.

JC advised that the letter was asking for Forum members to revisit the primary secondary funding ratio, and that he had added some background the paper to inform the discussion. JC noted that Pete Rowe had been invited to the meeting as an observer, and would be asked to contribute to the meeting and explain a little bit more of the background.

PR noted the government's push to all local authorities to be moving closer towards the National Funding Formula (NFF) but that Slough remains an outlier. He reiterated the points made in the letter and suggested that as other LAs moved closer to the median primary-secondary ratio, there would have to be a good reason for Slough not to do that.

JC asked primary members if there was anything they wanted to contribute, on the basis that they would have been part of the SPHA discussion which led to that letter. GD suggested that there was strong case to  put this on the agenda for next year and discuss it again.

JC confirmed that the primary secondary ratio is an output, not an input, to the formula. It is a consequence of the decisions that are made around the different factor values.  Forum makes recommendations to the LA about the values associated with the different factors, and that these are increasingly close to the National Funding formula rates. NB confirmed that the only factor for which Slough is not yet completely aligned with the NFF is mobility, but we are moving towards it. NB also pointed out that the final ratio is impacted by the relative sizes and distribution of schools. In Slough, a relatively small authority, the smallest school is a primary with 180 pupils but the biggest school in pupil terms, is also a primary school – this is unusual.  Where there are lots of small schools, the ration is skewed because each school is attracting the lump sum. PR responded that in his view the lump sum argument did not account for the discrepancy in the ratio. NB agreed it would be helpful to understand exactly why the Slough ratio was not closer to 1:1.29. 

JC suggested there was a piece of work to do in the autumn term to determine the extent to which the ratio is determined by school structure, or by decisions that are made around factor values.  It would be helpful to understand how decisions that are made in the next funding round about factor values influence the ratio and to provide a very clear explanation of where Forum is able to recommend changes where it cannot.

MW confirmed as the previous chair of forum and as a primary representative she would endorse the importance of understanding the factors and their complexity, and understanding which ones are driving the ratio is an important piece of work which could be undertaken through the  5 to 16 Task group. MW reminded members of the process; the task group looks at the formula and the implications of any recommendations, and Forum makes recommendations to the LA.

NM asked about MW’s recommendation to go through the 5-16 task group and if that wasn’t the case, how else would this get done? MW confirmed that in some authorities there may not be such a task group, in which case the detailed work would be done in the full Forum. However, the task group approach allowed for a more detailed scrutiny of the proposals. JC confirmed that not every Forum works in that way, but historically, the impact in Slough has been to give the proposals for the formula very close scrutiny, with in-depth discussions about particular schools, and how to manage the move towards the NFF to avoid a funding ‘cliff edge’. 

PR agreed that working through the 5-16 task group was the best approach Forum members agreed that that JC should write back to SPHA confirming the agreed process for discussing the ratio in the autumn term.