Agenda item

The Forum received a report on the transfer of the Education Services Grant duties and costs to the Dedicated Schools Grant.

It was reported that in the 2015 Spending Review of the Department for Education (DfE), a saving of £600 million was announced by removing the ESG general funding element from 2017-18.  It was recognised that local authorities would need to use other sources of funding to pay for education services once the general funding element had been removed.  Regulations were therefore being amended to allow local authorities to retain some of their schools block DSG to cover the statutory duties that they carried out for maintained schools. 

The report presented the makeup of the Education Services Grant (ESG) up to April 2017 and the two elements that funded two different groups.  It went on to explain that the general duties element was ending in August 2017 and funding previously allocated through the retained duties element would be transferred to the Schools Block DSG. 

In the report were the responsibilities set out by the DfE which Officers proposed to be funded by DSG for the Retained Duties element and the General Duties element.  Schools Forum approval was required for Retained Duties element and maintained schools members approval was required for the General Duties element.

Officers referred Members to Appendix 5 which presented the former ESG transferred to DSG for 2017-18 for retained duties, which totalled £288,514.00.  The Forum agreed to this.

Officers then referred Members to Appendix 6 which presented the former ESG transferred to DSG for 2017-18 for general duties, which totalled £1,118,469.00.

Officers informed the Forum that £400,491 of transitional funding would be received (for the April to August 2017 period) for the General duties element, which was being used to offset the total amount needed.  Officers were also looking to use £97,094 of School Improvement grant funding recently announced, subject to there being no ring fenced requirements of how it was spent.

This left a balance of £620,884 to be funded.  The EFA were allowing local authorities to gain permission for de-delegation of this amount from maintained schools.  In Halton, this would equate to roughly £34 per pupil.

Appendix 7 presented the Indicative Schools Block Budgets for 2017-18 after Full ESG delegation, which was not being recommended by Officers. Officers then went on to propose that the Dismissals budget of £127,110 is delegated from maintained schools (primary, secondary and special) and the balance would be funded from the DSG carry forward for 2017-18 only.

Appendix 8 presented the Indicative Schools Block Budgets 2017-18 after part ESG delegation (which was being proposed).  Officers pointed out that they were expecting a carry forward balance in the region of £1.4m which would mean there was roughly £900,000 of carry forward monies available for 2017-18 onwards.  A Task and Finish sub group was required to review the services by the general duties grant and how they would be funded from 2018-19 onwards.

The maintained schools representatives agreed to this.  

RESOLVED:  That Schools Forum

1)    note the report;

2)    agree that services previously funded by the Retained Duties ESG are funded by DSG from April 2017;

3)    agree that the services previously funded by the General Duties ESG are funded by DSG by way of de-delegation from maintained schools less transitional funding; and

4)    agree to £288,514 Schools Block to be retained centrally to be spent on former ESG duties as listed in Appendix 5.