Issue - meetings

Background:

This report advised the Cabinet that officers had formulated and consulted upon the 2017-18 schools’ and academies’ draft funding arrangements and set out the recommended changes to Medway’s mainstream schools’ and academies funding formula. The consultation had included four funding formula options which were presented to the Schools Forum.

The four funding formula options detailed in the report were:

i)             To keep the same Funding Formula as 2016-17.

ii)            To remove LAC and Mobility funding factors.

iii)           To keep the same funding factors but reduce the overall unit cost funding gap between the primary and secondary.

iv)           To remove the LAC and mobility funding factors and to reduce the primary and secondary overall unit cost funding gap.

The Cabinet noted that during the consultation the Schools Forum had provisionally agreed to the implementation of funding formula option 4, subject to consultation with schools, and that all schools and academies had been consulted between the 19 September to 7 October.

An addendum report set out the recommendations from the Schools Forum, which had met on 17 October 2016 to consider the proposals.

It was noted that the Cabinet would receive a further report on 17 January 2017 which would set out proposals for the final funding formula, which would be updated to reflect the 2016 school census data.

Reasons:

The local authority was required to implement the funding formula changes from 2017-18 in accordance with the regulations and to inform the Education Funding Agency.