F40 fair funding briefing for MPs - Committee Room 11, Houses of Parliament Tuesday 3 February 2015 1. AttendanCe F40: Robin Walker MP, Nic Dakin MP and Sir Nick Harvey (f40’s three Vice Chairs), Stewart King, Margaret Judd, Gillian Hayward and Doug Allan (Secretary). Andrew Bridgen MP; Anne-Marie Morris MP; Karen Lumley MP; Graham Stuart MP; Jeremy Lefroy MP; Marcus Jones MP; Julian Sturdy MP; Mark Pawsey MP; Sir Alan Duncan MP; Bill Wiggin MP; Richard Graham MP; Caroline Spelman MP; Neil Parish MP; Mrs Pauline Latham OBE MP; Fiona Bruce MP; Neil Carmichael MP; Michael Fabricant MP; William Cash MP; Jonathan Djanogly MP; Sir James Paice MP; Annette Brook MP; David Heath MP; Christopher Pincher MP; Steve Brine MP Caroline Scott (for Robert Walter MP); Arthur Virgo (for Phillip Dunne MP); Kay Abigail (for Karen Bradley MP); Matthew Joy (for Therese Coffey MP); Fionna Todd (for Neil Parrish MP; Philippa Reevy (for Harriett Baldwin MP); Jessica Hosner-Wright (for Sajid Javid MP); Toby Williams (for Hugo Swire MP); Thomas Barlow (office of Anne-Marie Morris MP); Pippa Page (office of Sir Nick Harvey MP); Tim Jacob (office of Neil Parish MP); Harry Dobson & Freddie Hodgeson (office of Shailesh Vara MP; representative from the office of Ben Bradshaw MP; Janet Pace 2. Apologies ReCeived Kelvin Hopkins MP, Sir Peter Luff, MP, Sir Hugh Bayley MP, Ronnie Campbell MP, Yvonne Fovargue MP, Andy Burnham MP, Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, Nicky Morgan MP, Robert Walter MP, Sajid Javid MP. The following Members had indicated that they would attend but didn’t because of urgent business in the House: Andrew Bingham MP; Nigel Adams MP; Karl McCartney MP; Graham Brady MP; Andrew Lansley CBE MP; Sir Andrew Stunell MP; Tessa Munt MP; Dan Byles MP. 3. WelCome and Introduction Robin Walker MP welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming to this special briefing on school funding. He announced that Ivan Ould should have been chairing the event, but that he is absent due to illness. RW expressed his gratitude to Ivan Ould for his leadership and hard work on behalf of f40 over many years. RW referred to recent success in gaining extra £390m, much of which will benefit f40 authorities in 2015-16 and beyond. The Coalition Government has recognised the unfairness of present school funding and committed to a new formula. F40 has developed its own proposals for a new formula and made a presentation to DfE officials, which was well-received. The DfE has created a range of scenarios using f40’s formula: these are confidential at the moment. However, he indicated that in general terms the gains that most f40 and other rural areas would expect in terms of funding uplift would be around two to three times greater under f40s proposals than in a no change scenario, there would be more winners and fewer losers overall and the authorities likely to lose funding were overwhelmingly concentrated in larger cities, especially inner London. RW indicated that he aims to maintain pressure on the leadership and Education teams of all parties by seeking a Backbench Debate as soon as possible. He produced an application form and asked Members to support his bid. The motion will be: “Given the continued fiscal pressure on the schools budget in the next Parliament, this House believes the speedy implementation of a fair and transparent funding formula is more urgent than ever”. 4. Presentation Stewart King, who has led the f40 research team looking at a new formula, gave a presentation of the proposals. The presentation is being sent to all f40 MPs and is enclosed with this note of the meeting. 1 5. DisCussion RW said emphasised that the proposals do not come in year one! They are actually year 21, which is how long it has taken to get to this point in f40’s campaign. He emphasised the need to see real movement and a swift change, regardless of which party is in Government after May. If the agenda is a “flat cash”, then an urgent settlement on a fairer distribution is absolutely essential. William Cash MP described the years of campaigning he has undertaken to get an improved settlement for Staffordshire. He pondered why it is that Surrey, which has a similar population to Staffordshire, should have such much more per pupil. SK said it is extremely difficult to explain but that, in part, is the difficulty with the existing system. He pointed out that both Staffordshire and Surrey would benefit under f40’s proposals. RW said that the differences in funding between neighbouring LAs had always been an issue, as in Leicester/Leicestershire and Stoke- on-Trent/ Staffordshire. Despite the disparities in funding, in a “no change” scenario Stoke-on-Trent looked set to gain more than Staffordshire whereas, in the f40 proposals Staffordshire, which missed out on any substantial share of the £390m down-payment, stood to gain more than Stoke. This demonstrates the need for a fair base funding, before deprivation additions are introduced. WC was the first MP to agree to sign the backbench debate motion. Graham Stuart MP, who is Chair of the Education Select Committee, said that the East Riding of Yorkshire had suffered because the Fairer Funding extra funding for 2015-16 had been worked out on the Schools Block only. The council had taken decisions historically on High Needs which impacted on how they are now being funded. SK pointed out that because the extra cash was calculated on Schools Block only, some LAs lost out. F40 argued the case for a different calculation, but was unsuccessful. ERYC would be a gainer under f40’s proposals. GS also asked if f40 had plans to release the outcome per LA that stem from its proposals as if we are to mobilise MPs they must have ammunition to argue the case. The London boroughs and big Mets have tremendous organisation and influence, so we must be organised. RW said he fully understood these points but the current figures were supplied in confidence, but he has asked f40 to provide estimates to each of their members as to how much uplift they can expect from the proposals and these will be circulated as soon as they have been prepared. GS also counter-signed the motion and, as the Select Committee chair, he is one of the four proposers alongside the three f40 vice chairs. Jeremy Lefroy MP said that Staffordshire was getting no extra funding initially, but when the sum available increased to £390m, it resulted in an extra allocation of £100k. Now it is vitally important to get the new funding formula in place as quickly as possible. He also flagged up the problem of capital funding, though RW acknowledged that there are also significant challenges with capital funding and that there is a strong argument that this is correlate to the longstanding problems with the funding formula but argued that it was important to focus on the argument about the formula and revenue funding first and then to seek redress for the capital side of the equation once this has been fixed. Anne-Marie Morris MP commented that f40 has done remarkably well with its proposals but she wondered how robust the formula is. It would be helpful if the detail could be shared so that MPs could see for themselves. She added that it is imperative that f40 LAs are 100 per cent behind any final proposals put forward. RW again indicated his desire to see the modelling circulated as soon as f40 can produce their own figure on this. SK spoke about the robustness of the f40 proposals and the fact that they had been widely consulted on and supported by f40 member authorities. He added that the Research Team had used reasonable assumptions about things such as class sizes and that the proposed formula is flexible enough to cope with all school situations. Not all authorities are using the sparsity factor and we really need one which is robust. RW added that the vast majority of f40 member LAs had approved the proposals so far. He also said that the group has recently recruited a new member LA – Lincolnshire – and that more authorities are on the point of joining. However, he pointed out that another dozen or so LAs ought to be in membership and he hoped that they might also be encouraged to join up. 2 Sir NiCk Harvey MP said he was pleased to be a Vice Chair of f40 and fully supported the group’s aims. F40 has undertaken a substantial and worthwhile piece of work. The government has shown some good faith with the extra £390m, but we now need to achieve a new “flatter” and fairer funding arrangement. Some areas have higher costs than others, but this can be dealt with. In respect of the Surrey point raised earlier, he added that when teachers stay put for a long time, as in Devon, the cost of employing them rises over time. Therefore, the argument that Surrey needs more funding due to the competitive nature of the market is cancelled out by places like Devon having more length of service and seniority. This is another argument for a flatter formula. MiChael FabriCant MP expressed the view that it has taken a long time to reach this point and whilst he can see merit in f40’s proposals, he suggested that other LA interest groups will argue strongly for the status quo. They will put up significant resistance to our ideas. LEPs in urban areas in particular will be a problem.