Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department for Education and Skills
Question 81 (Mr Richard Bacon): The reduction
of bureaucracy
Part of the National Agreement on Raising Standards
and Reducing Workloads (which was an agreement reached in 2003
and agreed between DfES Ministers and a number of the professional
associations; support staff unions and with employers) called
for the creation of an independent body to cut red tape and reduce
bureaucracy in schools. That independent body, the Implementation
Review Unit (IRU) was subsequently launched in June 2003.
The IRU consists of a panel of 12 practitioners
from across England—serving heads, senior teachers and a
school bursar—who review existing and new policy initiatives,
covering all organisations that impact on schools in England.
This includes the Department for Education and Skills, national
agencies such as Ofsted, the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency
and the Teacher Training Agency, as well as local education authorities,
Learning and Skills Councils and relevant bodies from outside
education.
The work of the IRU is supported by a secretariat
staffed by civil servants comprising 0.4 of a Grade 7, 0.5 of
an SEO, one EO together with an SEO level secondee from a local
authority. The annual salary costs are approximately £118,000.
In addition to the salary costs, the IRU incurred
programme costs of £320,000 in 2005-06 which covered monthly
meeting costs in London which includes room hire, overnight accommodation,
travel and subsistence and reimbursement to cover salary costs
for individual members of about 24 days a year.
The IRU publishes an Annual Report on progress.
These reports can be viewed at www.dfes.gov.uk/iru
Question 85 (Mr Richard Bacon): Advice given to
local authorities about funding
To help local authorities and Schools Forums
to implement the new school funding arrangements the Department
ran a series of regional conferences in autumn 2005. A wide range
of information and practical guidance on the funding arrangements
has also been made available on the TeacherNet website at www.teachernet.gov.uk/schoolfunding200608/.
Since then, the Department has run a series
of events as part of the Supporting Schools' Financial Management
(SSFM) programme for local authority finance and school improvement
staff. SSFM is designed to provide a support network for authority
staff to help make the best use of the new funding arrangements,
particularly multi-year budgets, and encourage better management
in schools. We have also provided awareness training to over 3,000
schools on the School's Financial Benchmarking website and Financial
Management Standard, both of which can be found at www.teachernet.gov.uk/schoolfinance.
Question 90 (Mr Richard Bacon): The cost of Bexley
and Unity City Academies since inception
The table below shows for each financial year
since 2000-01 the amounts paid in respect of each academy.
"General Annual Grant" includes the
school budget share and such grants (eg start-up grant and School
Standards Grant) as are paid by the Department. Where grant is
payable by the local authority (eg Standards Fund) the amounts
paid are not known, but are the same as if the academy was a maintained
school.
"Other recurrent" payments include
feasibility and implementation stage costs, contributions to redundancy
costs after opening and also, in the case of Unity, an additional
grant to meet a deficit on running costs, and funding for an intervention
package to address educational and administrative problems.
Capital costs represent amounts paid by the
Department. Sponsor contributions are excluded.
The Business Academy, Bexley
| Financial Year |
Number of
pupils (1)
|
General Annual Grant (GAG) (£m) |
Other recurrent (£m) | Capital (£m)
| Total (£m) |
| 2000-01 | 0 | 0
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2001-02 | 0 | 0
| 0.330 | 2.169 | 2.499
|
| 2002-03 | 711 | 2.713
| 0.680 | 16.690 | 20.083
|
| 2003-04 | 836 | 4.182
| 0.385 | 11.035 | 15.602
|
| 2004-05 | 1,379 | 6.297
| 0.487 | 6.208 | 12.992
|
| 2005-06 (2) | 1,391 |
7.066 | 0 | 0.004 |
7.070 |
| Total | | 20.258
| 1.882 | 36.105 | 58.246
|
| | |
| | |
Unity City Academy, Middlesbrough
| Financial Year | Number of
pupils (1)
| General Annual Grant (GAG) (£m)
| Other recurrent (£m) | Capital (£m)
| Total (£m) |
| 2000-01 | 0 | 0
| 0.093 | 0 | 0.093
|
| 2001-02 | 0 | 0
| 0.508 | 0 | 0.508
|
| 2002-03 | 1,160 | 3.581
| 0.798 | 1.877 | 6.256
|
| 2003-04 | 1,126 | 5.502
| 0.023 | 10.801 | 16.326
|
| 2004-05 | 1,123 | 5.712
| 0.485 | 5.764 | 11.961
|
| 2005-06 (2) | 1,178 | 5.597
| 2.352 | 0.518 | 8.467
|
| Total | | 20.392
| 4.259 | 18.960 | 43.611
|
| | |
| | |
Notes:
(1) Number of pupils is taken from Pupil Level Annual
Schools Census (PLASC) for 2000-01 to 2004-05 and the September
Pupil Count (SPC) for 2005-06. PLASC Data for 2005-06 is not yet
available.
(2) 2005-06 Data comprises actual expenditure up to
end February and expected March 2006 payments of:
Bexley—£0.536 million (GAG),
Unity City—£0.471 million (GAG), £0.112 million
(Capital).
Question 134 (Mr Alan Williams): Funding of successful and
popular schools
I thought it might be helpful to provide a note to explain
the current arrangements in more detail.
Where a maintained school wishes to expand either by adding
a further 27 or more pupils to its intake, or by increasing its
physical capacity by 25%, the governing body must publish statutory
proposals. This involves four stages:
— consultation (with all interested parties),
— publication (in a local newspaper and at
the entrance to the school and another public place),
— representation (enabling people to comment
or object), and
— decision. The decision will be taken by local
School Organisation Committee (SOC) or, if the SOC cannot agree
a unanimous decision, by the schools adjudicator.
Both the SOC and adjudicator must be satisfied that funding
is in place before they approve any statutory proposals. In August
2003, as part of the Government's commitment to enable popular
schools to expand, we announced new additional incentive funding
for secondary schools that wished to publish proposals to expand.
Under this scheme secondary schools can apply for £400,000
(or £500,000 if they have a sixth form) to assist with the
capital cost of expansion. The balance of any funding required
would have to be met by the local authority or, in the case of
voluntary aided (VA) schools, from the VA capital grant allocation
to the authority.
Where a local authority refuses to provide the balance, we
may provide 100% of the funding needed, subject to a value for
money scrutiny, but we reserve the right to recover the balance
(ie above the £400,000-500,000 amount) from the authority's
future years' capital allocations. This funding was designed to
ensure that SOCs and adjudicators were not prevented from approving
secondary school expansion schemes by lack of capital. It is ministers'
intentions to expand this funding programme to include primary
schools.
We are currently considering options but it is anticipated
that the arrangements for primary schools will operate on the
same or similar lines to that for secondary schools.
On the question of who had the final word in such cases,
it is for schools themselves to decide whether they wish to expand—there
is no compulsion to do so. Secondary schools requiring capital
funding can apply to the Department. We will normally approve
such funding but stipulate that this is subject to the SOC or
adjudicator approving the statutory proposals.
In all cases however it would be for the school to publish
proposals and the final decision will be made by the local SOC
or schools adjudicator. The statutory guidance to Decision Makers
(ie SOCs and adjudicators) includes a presumption to approve proposals
for the expansion of popular and successful schools (excluding
grammar schools). It is for the SOC/adjudicator to decide whether
the school is successful and popular and therefore whether the
presumption applies. The guidance also requires the Decision Maker
to confirm that the school's admission arrangements fully meet
the Admissions Code of Practice before approving any expansion
proposals.
Turning to recurrent funding, the School Financing Regulations
make provision to recognise that rapidly expanding schools will
need funding to meet any immediate costs pressures that they face.
In the case of schools who are known to be gaining a new
class or year group part way through a financial year the regulations
require local authorities to ensure funding is provided in the
initial budget share of a school to reflect the fact that they
will need to fund (for instance) at least 7/12ths of costs of
a new class or classes that would otherwise not be recognised
under the single pupil count arrangements.
There may also be circumstances where a school receives an
influx of pupils mid-year that was neither planned for or known
about at the start of a financial year. Where, as a result of
this, a school faces immediate and significant cost pressures,
local authorities are able to use their school specific contingency
funding from their central expenditure to make an allocation to
cover the cost pressures for the period until the additional pupils
are incorporated in to the subsequent year's budget share. It
will be for each local authority to consider, in consultation
with their schools forum, the appropriate criteria for distribution
and the amount of funding they need to retain against such circumstances.
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