Agenda item

The Cabinet considered a joint report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services and Corporate Director of Resources which provided an overview of the forecast Dedicated Schools Grant School Block and proposed local formula for allocating funding to individual schools in 2024/25, where the proposal is that the council continues to align the local mainstream primary and secondary formula funding in 2024/25 with the National Funding Formula (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

Councillor T Henderson, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People’s Services thanked the Corporate Director of Resources and his team for all their hard work. Overall, mainstream primary and secondary schools in the County would receive additional funding of £17.6m next year, a year on year increase of 3.6%, inclusive of an additional allocation of £7.4m for the teachers pay grant. It was disappointing that the Department for Education miscalculated the published figure in July. The proposed formula next year maintained alignment with the national funding formula and had been consulted on through the Schools Forum.

Councillor R Bell, Deputy Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Finance explained that the additional £1.6 billion of funding being provided to core school funding next year was welcomed. It was hoped that this would help schools in their budget setting, where they, like the Council were being challenged with inflation and demand pressures.

Resolved:

That the recommendations in the report be approved.