“Carmarthenshire County Council along with the Welsh Government advocate that “Every Child Matters”. We are also informed that under every “Fair Funding Formula” there are always winners and losers. However, if the same schools are losing out, year on year, how can this be fair. What can be done to reduce this inequality?”
Minutes:
“Carmarthenshire County Council along with the Welsh Government advocate that “Every Child Matters”. We are also informed that under every “Fair Funding Formula” there are always winners and losers. However, if the same schools are losing out, year on year, how can this be fair. What can be done to reduce this inequality?”
Response by Councillor Emlyn Dole, Leader of the Council:-
“Firstly I would like to thank Cllr Rob Evans for his question.
I agree that ‘Every Carmarthenshire Child Matters’ and that we do our best for each child and young person- at the last count there were nearly 28,000 of them across the County. However, we have to work within the Revenue Support Grant that’s provided by Welsh Government. Now, what would be nice, would be to have a fair budget to start with, as well as a timely budget. For the last two years, there’s been no protection from Welsh Government for education. At the WLGA meetings and in consultations with the Welsh Labour Government we’ve asked for that but, we’ve been told that we have to prioritise education. Some people will consider that a hospital pass. It is, in the sense that it’s up to us to find that within a reducing budget in a time of austerity. So, it was only last week, actually, as far as timely goes, that we received £1.9m that we should have got right at the beginning but, three months into the financial year we got that. That has repercussions as well as to the way that we set the budget.
This administration has worked hard to protect school funding and we haven’t reduced the funding that we allocate to schools, unlike many other County Councils have had to do. That’s not been the case for other service areas where the impact of the budget cuts have been deeply felt.
Under the School Funding Regulations Pan Wales 2010, which applies to all County Councils in Wales, all authorities, the individual schools budget is allocated to schools in the form of budget shares, using a locally determined funding formula. The content of the formula is dictated by legislation from Welsh Government, with many aspects common to all Councils however there is some flexibility to reflect local circumstances and priorities.
So, a local authority must determine, before the beginning of a funding period, the formula that they will use to determine the schools' budget shares during that funding period, having regard to the factors, the criteria and the requirements as set out in the Regulations.
In determining budget shares for schools, a local authority must ensure that their formula provides that at least 70% of the funding be allocated on the basis of pupil numbers. Authorities then have discretion to distribute the remaining 30% on the basis of a range of factors so that they can take account of individual school circumstances.
God forbid that Welsh Government devolved too much responsibility down to local government. So, in Schedule 3 of the 2010 Regulations, they then go onto detail the additional criteria that you might be able to take into account as a Local Authority setting that formula for that 30%, and they include areas such as Special Education Needs, Utilities, NNDR (National Non Domestic Rates), premises, school size, split sites, cleaning, language and others where pupil numbers would not be an appropriate distribution factor. They are the same for all authorities across Wales. However there will be differences in the importance and the emphasis placed on them and their value as every County Council area is different. In the same vein, all schools are different and therefore it is logical that two schools would not attract the same funding due to that local circumstances and the local criteria factor.
With reference in your question to ‘winners and losers’, the formula we use to fund schools is a fair and equal distribution mechanism because it is used to fund all of our schools- all schools are treated in the same way. However, when you change a distribution basis or amount within the same total amount, the movement in the share per school will be a combination of increases and decreases. In other words the cake stays the same, but the size of the slice might vary. The reason for changing the distribution basis is to reflect current need, developments and pressures across the school sectors.
Now, the most significant movement in the primary sector is caused by pupil number increases or decreases. The main reasons for this are the decline of pupil numbers, the number of schools available in a relatively small geographical area as well as parental choice.
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of our Headteachers, finance officers and School Governors who have been working hard to manage within their allocated resources, and I acknowledge that it is a challenging time for all schools and all County Council services. However, during a time of austerity we have to make difficult decisions and try to operate within the resources that we have given to us”.
There was no supplementary question.