Council to give critical response over school funding reform bid

The borough has long been at a disadvantage under the current system, receiving £4,613.11 per pupil compared to an England average of £5,082.53 – making it the 149th lowest funded out of the 154 local authorities.

The Department for Education is consulting over plans to introduce a “fair” system that would see schools directly funded by the Government and allowed to manage their own budgets, whereas now the department gives grants to local authorities which are then administered to schools.

But East Riding Council’s cabinet criticised the “inherent unfairness” of the new proposals when it agreed its response to the consultation yesterday, and said local flexibility and priority in funding would be compromised.

Instead, the council, which will formally submit its response today, calls for a “global sum” to be given to the East Riding, which would then be allocated locally by a schools forum.

In a report to cabinet on the proposals, Alison Michalska, the council’s director of children, family and adult services, said: “The rationale for a fair funding formula is based on a notion that similar pupils should be funded at a similar level.

“However, the definition of ‘similar pupils’ is limited and fails to account for the expense involved in dealing with issues such as rural isolation, small pockets of poverty and learners with high cost difficulties and disabilities.”

The East Riding is one of the biggest unitary authorities in the country and faces issues include the cost of delivering services in a sparsely populated rural area, which covers 937 sq miles.

John Wilson, assistant director (children and young people), said the system would only be fair if it took into account the local complexities of funding schools.

He said: “Our position is that the rationale on which the schools funding system is based is failing to take into account the issues that the East Riding has been concerned about for a number of years.

“If all pupils are funded at a similar level we are absolutely in support of that because that provides fair funding, but the impact of that funding then being allocated to schools and the ability of the school to manage its own affairs may then be determined by those issues which are beyond the control of the school.”

An example he gave was the impact on a school’s budget of the different costs of employing teachers.

He said: “In the last couple of years a large number of small schools have had teaching staff at the top of the pay rate, which is considerably more expensive than a similar school with teachers who may not have reached the top of the scale.

“For a small school that’s quite a large deal.”

The current system is based on a complex formula in which the amount of the largest grant, the Dedicated Schools Grant, is calculated per pupil for each authority based on what the authority received the previous year.

According to the proposals, the “ideal” school funding system would:

Distribute money fairly and logically

Give extra resources for pupils who need them most

Support a diverse range of provision

Be transparent and easy to understand.

The department said the existing system was “opaque and extremely complex”, unfair, failed to accurately reflect need, and did not support the new academy schools.

Despite the current funding discrepancy, East Riding schools consistently perform well.

A total of 58.6 per cent of East Riding pupils achieved the benchmark five GCSE passes at A* to C, including English and maths, while the England average was 55.3 per cent.