Agenda item

Peter Haylock (Director of Education and SEND) discussed three major challenges for schools – falling rolls, a significant increase in the number of applications for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), and rising costs due to inflation:

• Falling rolls: While year 10 places were full this year, numbers were down at the lower stages with fewer children entering the primary school system.
• Increase in EHCPs: The borough had experienced a rapid increase in applications for EHCPs, rising from 1200 one and a half years ago to 1500 today. That increase was not reflected in additional funding from the Government and would have a significant impact on the High Needs Block.
• Rising costs: Steep increases in inflation was putting further pressure on schools – particularly around energy bills and wage bills. National funding was not matching these additional costs.

Members added that schools were still dealing with the longtail of the pandemic and younger children especially were showing greater levels of need. Peter Haylock said this had come up in school visits and, in response, officers were looking at what funding streams were available to access to pay for additional resources in schools to support areas of acute need. They planned to work with headteachers and nurseries to put a bid together before Christmas. The Chair requested a paper for the next meeting on what had been picked up at a high level and where triage was needed.

ACTION: Peter Haylock

Members asked if officers had any detail of the additional money for schools announced by the Chancellor in the 17 November 2022 budget. Tony Burton (Head of Finance for Children’s Services and Education) said the detail would come in the new year, but he expected it might come in the form of a supplementary grant, similar to the previous year. The Chair asked for a high-level analysis of the new funding in January.

ACTION: Tony Burton

Tony Burton introduced the consultation responses. He noted that the responses were broadly similar to previous years and feedback on the workshops and the approach taken within the budget constraints was positive. The Chair suggested gathering feedback at the end of the workshops in future, rather than afterwards, hoping it would improve engagement.

Tony Burton noted that maintenance and the rebuilding of schools came up as a key theme at the workshops. He wanted to clarify that school rebuilds were not part of schools capital maintenance or basic needs grant funded schemes. They were self-financing schemes, using the development of private housing and other amenities to fund the building of the school. Peter Haylock said he would speak about the policy at the next headteachers meeting. Jacqui McShannon (Strategic Director of Children’s Services) suggested inviting a member of the Economy department to attend with him to explain the detail of the self-financing approach.

ACTION: Peter Haylock

A member of the forum said some headteachers had asked them if the borough was moving towards the National Funding Formula (NFF) too quickly. Tony Burton said that the alignment to NFF had been undertaken gradually over recent years during the ‘soft’ transition to a hard NFF from 2023/24. Whilst the proposed budget closely mirrored NFF funding factor rates after area cost adjustment, funding on a per pupil basis year on year was protected via the minimum funding guarantee mechanism in the NFF (albeit in cash terms). He added that in a sense, the NFF was moving towards the borough’s funding model, as NFF funding had been increasing nationally in recent years, whilst funding growth in Hammersmith and Fulham has been constrained. This is resulting in the funding premium in Hammersmith and Fulham versus the NFF reducing over time, He noted that local authorities now had very limited local discretion within the NFF and the impacts of local discretionary changes on funding for individual schools was marginal in Hammersmith and Fulham.

A member of the forum asked why pupil numbers were decreasing and if they were attending private schools instead. Peter Haylock and the Chair said there were a number of factors, primarily that the birth rate was declining. The most recent census showed a 23% decline in the number of 0 to 4-year-olds.