<p> Director: Judith Badger Finance, Property and Resources Floor 3, Wakefield One PO Box 700, Burton Street Wakefield WF1 2EB T 01924 307292 E [email protected] Typetalk calls welcome</p><p>Our Ref: School Budgets 2015/16 Your Ref: Please reply to: Neil Hardwick / Caroline Carter Date: 27 February 2015 FAO: HEADTEACHERS / CHAIRS OF GOVERNORS</p><p>Dear Colleague</p><p>INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL BUDGETS 2015/16</p><p>I am pleased to inform you that the calculations of Individual School Budgets for financial year 2015/16 have now been completed. The calculation for your school can be found on the Wakefield Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) portal, and information will shortly be available on the Council’s Intranet service, via the ‘I Point’ mailing system.</p><p>The VLE can be accessed through the following link: https://www.itslearning.com/index.aspx? customerid=&username=&redirectlogin=itslearning.com&MustUseSsl=true&</p><p>Select: Wakefield, & then enter your Username & Password. Click on: Courses Select: Schools Finance – Home Page Select: School Budget & Outturn Statements Select: 2015/16 Schools Block Budget Notification Input: The workbook password ‘Wakef_179’ when the prompt appears. Input: The Authority number, 384, followed immediately by your School’s individual DfE number, in the light blue coloured cell in the top left hand corner.</p><p>The ‘I Point’ system can be access via the Council’s Intranet:</p><p>Select: ‘I’ on the Intranet ‘A to Z’ Bar Select: The 2nd / lower of the ‘I Point’ labelled links. Select: ‘14-15 Weekly Mailings’. Select: ‘Issue 22’ for access to the attachment which notifies of the budget document availability. Please note that due to the publication deadline date, this issue will not be available until Wednesday 4th March.</p><p>The 2015/16 School Budget Block Share document is a Department for Education proforma based upon the Authority’s data returns and decisions driven by the Schools Forum, compliant with DfE guidelines. It shows:-</p><p> The detailed calculations which underpin your school budget share allocation.  Notification of the proportion of your School Budget Share, (Notional SEN), which is to meet the costs of supporting your pupils with SEN. This is exclusive of any SEN ‘top-up’ due for individual pupils. This is covered in further depth later in this document.  An itemised de-delegation table per service provided, (which will automatically print on the reverse of the document).</p><p>GUIDE TO YOUR SCHOOL BUDGET INFORMATION </p><p>(1) School’s Block Budget Share:-</p><p>Schools have now been removed from the Carbon Reduction Commitment Scheme. The Department of Education has made a deduction of £7.51 per pupil from the Dedicated School Grant total allocation in 2015/16 to action this measure.</p><p>The 2015/16 School Budget Share is calculated based on October 2014 pupil count information. The data has been provided to the Local Authority by the Department for Education. This data has been provided to a number of decimal places and therefore you may find small anomalies due to the rounding in your funding sheet.</p><p>The Minimum Funding Guarantee protects schools from changes in the formula from financial year 2014/15 to 2015/16. The Minimum Funding Guarantee for 2015/16 was again set by the Department of education at -1.5% per pupil. As a result of applying the aforementioned, a capping limit of a maximum gain of +1.47% per pupil had to be applied to keep the disadvantaged schools within the Minimum Funding guarantee threshold.</p><p>Central Retained Grant & De-Delegations:</p><p>The Local Authority retains funding centrally to provide the following services which are limited at 2014/15 expenditure levels:-</p><p> Admissions Service  Servicing of the Wakefield Schools Forum  Combined Services Support to the Wakefield Music Service  Combined Services Support to the Youth Offending Team  Combined Services Support to the Wakefield District Children’s Safeguarding Board. Agreed De-delegations are amounts of funding that LA Maintained Schools have determined to return to the Local Authority for those services / costs to be continued to be provided centrally on behalf of all schools within a phase:</p><p>Secondary LA Maintained Schools:  Free School Meal Eligibility Services  Trade Union facilities time  Contingency funds for exceptional circumstances</p><p>Primary LA Maintained Schools:  Free School Meal Eligibility Services  Behaviour Support Services  Trade Union facilities time  Contingency funds for exceptional circumstances.</p><p>Nursery Schools: (Not part of Schools Block, but note re: De-delegated services only).  Trade union facilities time.</p><p>Notional SEN Budget</p><p>This element is shown as a single figure within the Schools block breakdown. It denotes the element of your school budget share which is notionally intended to support both existing SEN pupils with Low Cost / High Incidence SEN, and the first £6,000 of support for high cost pupils.</p><p>To assist Schools with the calculation, we have notionally assumed that approximately:</p><p> 25% of the notional SEN will be used to support low cost / high incidence SEN  75% of the notional SEN budget will be used to support the first £6,000 of high cost pupils. </p><p>It is then estimated that 75% of the notional figure should meet the ‘high cost’ pupil numbers, at a rate of £6,000 per pupil. </p><p>(2) Early Years Block funding.</p><p>The 2015/16 Early Years funding estimate is also published on the VLE. It is based on the Spring 2014, Summer 2014, and Autumn 2014 registered hours of take up with a deprivation increment based upon January 2014 data. The initial allocation for maintained schools will be paid on this estimate at the commencement of the financial year. The final actual payable will be adjusted termly in arrears to reflect the actual take up of places after the data is validated.</p><p>(3) High Cost Block Pupils.</p><p>This currently includes the funding for High Needs learners. The additional funding for pupils who require additional educational support which costs in excess of £6,000 will be dependent on where those pupils are being educated. The Local Authority has completed a banded framework (matrix) of top up funding for these pupils. This ‘top-up’ funding will continue to be paid to schools on a monthly basis, dependent on their current education provider.</p><p>(4) Pupil Premium Funding.</p><p>The 2015/16 Pupil Premium allocation will be based upon the data gathered from the January 2015 census. The Authority is currently awaiting the final allocation.</p><p> However, 2015/16 rates payable how been confirmed as:-</p><p>- £1,320 per Primary school pupil re: ‘Deprived pupils’ , as defined by the ‘Ever 6’ Free School Meals eligibility measure. (An increase of £20 per pupil on 2014/15 rates). - £935 per Secondary school pupil re: ‘Deprived pupils’, as defined by the ‘Ever 6’ Free School - £300 for Service Children. - £1,900 for ‘Post’ Looked After Children, i.e. Pupils that had been in the care system, but no longer are. - £1,900 for ‘current’ Looked After Children, based upon the March 2015 Looked After Children Data Return (SSDA903). N.B. This funding stream is placed at the discretion of the Authority’s ‘Virtual School Head’.</p><p>(5) Universal Free School Meals for Infants:-</p><p>Commencing September 2014, every child in full time reception, year 1 and year 2, in state- funded schools, were offered a free lunch. The Government confirmed that schools are to be allocated a flat rate of £2.30 per meal taken, and the initial payment was based upon the Department of Education’s estimated take up rate of 87% of pupils. The adjustment to a final payment based upon actual numbers is to be calculated from the average take up from the October 2014 & January 2015 census. The DfE have informed us that this final adjustment will not be available until June 2015, and that this average will be used to formulate the allocations for the 2015/16 academic year. </p><p>(6) Early Years Pupil Premium:-</p><p>The Early Years Pupil Premium will be rolled out nationally from April 2015. The payment will be c. £300 p.a. for eligible 3 & 4 year olds from low income families. Payments will be allocated to the setting and how it is spent will be at the discretion of the early years setting, although they will need to demonstrate its effectiveness.</p><p>(7) Devolved Formula Capital (DFC)</p><p>The Council has received a devolved formula capital allocation of £564,170 for 2015/16. It is calculated on a per school lump sum of £4,000, plus a variable per pupil sum, weighted by school type. </p><p>2015/16 confirmed pupil rates are unchanged from 2014/15:- Nursery / Primary £11.25 Secondary £16.88 Special / PRU £33.75</p><p>Final school allocations will be confirmed at the end of April 2015, once the 1st April Academy conversion adjustments are clarified.</p><p>I hope your school finds the information in this letter and the detailed information on the VLE useful for understanding the principles on which your school is funded. If you have any questions or queries in respect of any of this information please contact either Paul Heppenstall (Senior Management / Financial Accountant) on 01924 307292 or your School finance support officer for assistance.</p><p>Yours faithfully,</p><p>Neil Hardwick Group Finance Manager (Children & Young People).</p>