Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (ES 13A)
SCHOOL SIXTH
FORM FUNDING
From April 2002 all school sixth forms in England
are being funded by the Learning Skills Council (LSC), through
a new approach. Every school sixth form is funded either at the
level of its Real Terms Guarantee (RTG), or through the LSC's
own funding formula. The RTG is based on estimates of LEA expenditure
on the sixth form in 2000-01, using information taken from the
Local Education Authority's (LEA) Section 52 budget statement.
That figure has been uplifted to 2002-03 prices, taking into account
any injection of funds by the LEA to the sixth form in 2001-02
to recognise the broader post-16 curriculum. It has also been
adjusted to reflect pupil numbers changes to September 2001. No
end date has been set for the RTG, but Ivan Lewis has said it
will last at least for the length of this Parliament.
The LSC's formula funding provides schools with
funding related to the qualifications being studied, weighted
according to different qualification types and subjects. It also
includes funding for key skills and enrichment and additional
funding if appropriate for extra area and disadvantage costs.
The formula benefits high achieving schools with wide-ranging
programmes, a good mix of subjects, low dropout rates and pupils
from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The LEA receives funds from the LSC that are
clearly identified for each school with a sixth form.The school's
allocation is either at the RTG or the formula funding level—whichever
is higher. Nationally in 2002-03 about 2/3 of sixth forms will
be funded through the LSC's formula and about 1/3 at their RTG
level. The LEA is not constrained in any way from adding to the
school's budget, be it RTG or formula based, from it own resources,
should it choose to do so.
We have promised on a number of occasions that
the amount of funding lost from an LEA's Standard Spending Assessment
(SSA) budget will be matched by the amount it receives from the
LSC; that commitment still stands. However, we recognised earlier
this year that for some authorities a higher LSC allocation could
take up a substantial proportion of the increase in Education
Standard Spending Assessment or could mean the LEA being left
with a negative or small post-16 SSA after the deduction of the
sum to match the LSC's allocation. To meet these concerns LEAs
have been allowed additional flexibility in the way they fund
schools, and those LEAs that have been most significantly affected
have been provided with extra grant resources from the DfES. 34
LEAs will receive grants for 2002-03 under terms announced on
30 January 2002. These grants guarantee all LEAs a minimum level
of residual post-16 SSA, and that the great majority of their
increase in education SSA will be available for purposes other
than sixth form funding. For example, Barnet receives a grant
of £800,000 on this basis.
In January and February LEAs and the LSC identified
the need for further corrections to some of the allocations data.
Ministers have approved the payment of further special grants
to LEAs where the final LSC sixth form allocation, after the corrections
to the data at school level, was less than that assumed when the
SSA deduction was made on 30 January. This ensures that no LEA
is worse off overall.
In early 2002, many head-teachers and their
associations expressed concern that some LEAs were seeking to
compensate fully for any additional sixth form funding coming
from the LSC by adjusting the 11-16 element for the school, leaving
the school little or no better off than before. There has been
some more recent concern over the final budget set by LEAs for
schools with sixth forms. Some schools had not appreciated that
the LEA can legitimately subtract from the total budget share
any funding that is duplicated in both the LSC allocation and
the LEA's own formula.
In response to all these concerns, in early
May the DfES issued a note to all LEAs, which was copied to LSC
local arms. It explained that the Financing of Maintained School
Regulations for 2002-03 have been amended to operate in the following
way:
(a) the full LSC allocation must be added
into the school budget share calculation as a separate factor;
(b) the LEA may add a further sum of its
own for sixth forms if it wishes;
(c) the LEA may, if it wishes, use one or
both of the following factors (which always have a negative value)
in the budget share calculation:
(i) a factor which eliminates the double-funding
inherent in the Real Terms Guarantee methodology. The RTG was
calculated by taking age-weighted pupil factors for sixth formers
and adding to that a proportionate share of other (non-age-related)
funding delegated to the school. This means that where an LEA
ran its funding formula in the usual way for 2002-03, the budget
share calculations would produce an element of double-funding.
(ii) a factor which deducts up to two
thirds of the difference, if any, between a school's adjusted
RTG and its actual LSC allocation. The power to do this was introduced
in response to LEA difficulties with the higher allocations. Limiting
the deduction to two-thirds was designed to ensure that schools
saw some benefit from allocations above their RTG, with higher
gains in 2003 when it is planned that the deduction allowed will
be limited to one-third, No deduction will be allowed from 2004.
(d) The net result should always be that
a school's total funding includes an amount at least equal to
its adjusted RTG.
June 2002
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