Agenda item

The Chair asked Jamie Rockman (JR) summarise for his proposal.

JR noted that, as part of the DSG Management plan and safety valve programme, funding for alternative provision and particularly preventative alternative provision places has been reduced in Slough over the last few years, with an impact at secondary level more than primary.  Schools recognise that the local authority doesn't have a statutory duty to fund preventative alternative provision. However, schools still require that provision to support their young people and try to prevent permanent exclusions across the town, which obviously would have an adverse effect on the funding of statutory provisions. Without preventative alternative provision, it is very likely that permanent exclusions will increase.  That burden tends to fall on a small number of schools both at primary and secondary level.  The idea behind proposal was to try and collectively fund and develop a preventative alternative provision across Slough which would support all schools across the town as and when they need it, and trying to ensure that all schools are contributing at some point in order to build and develop that system.

The Chair thanked JR and confirmed that the proposal had been discussed extensively in the Slough Secondary Headteacher’s meeting. He confirmed that the proposal from JR was for an additional top slice of £150k pounds from the 2024-25 schools block to support these provisions, in other words, to spread the cost of the additional provision out amongst all schools.

The Chair noted that the 5-16 task group had discussed this at some length in a meeting with SH the previous day;  the conclusion was that the group had been very supportive of the principles, but could not see a mechanism in the current version of the formula to actually allocate the funding, primarily due to the  tightening of criteria around how you can use money. With this being the case, the purpose of this discussion now was understand what Forum members thought about the principle of trying to use schools block funding to support non-statutory provision, and how pressure could be applied to the DfE to allow this.

MW confirmed the detailed discussion from the Task Group and the absolute support for the principle of collaborative or collective funding, as although non-statutory, this element of preventative provision is potentially so powerful in avoiding permanent exclusion.  However, the inability to guarantee the funding because of the lack of a mechanism through the formula means that that there is less staffing stability for the provider organization.

VH confirmed the support within the Task Group, and the interest in collaborative funding through top slice. NM confirmed it was a positive discussion and suggested that the right approach might be to go to the DfE commissioners and really push them to see how preventative AP funding could be secured. 

SH confirmed her support for the principles of this, and that by doing so there was a potential for saving long-term funds. However, the schools block funding methodology does not have a way in which this could happen.  The only way to top slice the schools block, apart from to fund growth, is to transfer to another block. The most appropriate way of putting this funding somewhere for this purpose would be to put it to the high needs block. However, the issues is the level of attention given to the high needs block because of the deficit, and the DfE Commissioners position that the high neds block can only fund statutory services.

The Chair thanked Sarah and advised that even if there were a way of transferring the funding, or putting  some sort of collaborative arrangement in place to fund, there was insufficient time given the deadline for APT submission in mid-January. The Chair suggested trying to put some pressure on the Commissioners to come up with a mechanism, and also for Forum to start exploring what we might be possible for 2025-26 so that the proper proposal could be put in place. 

RB commented that he agreed with the principles but was concerned about what would happen to young people if an alternative model cannot be developed.

The Chair summarised the Forum position as being very supportive of the principle of the proposal for collaborative funding of non-statutory alternative provision from the schools block, and beginning willing to press the Commissioners for help in finding a way to move this forward.