TERMS OF REFERENCE,
MEMBERSHIP, WORKING METHODS.
The group has been set up to take forward
work on the school and LEA funding system, following the consultation on the proposals
in the Local Government Finance Green Paper. The overall aim of the group is
to oversee the production of a fully worked up proposal for a new funding system
that will contribute to raising educational standards, and a timetable for its
implementation. It will report in parallel to the Secretary of State for Education
and Employment and the Revenue Grant Distribution Review Group.
The group
will consider:
- How funding for schools and local authorities
can be separately identified, drawing on data from local authority financial returns.
- How
local authorities will provide an annual account of what they have spent on schools,
and where the funding has come from: special and specific grant, revenue support
grant, Council Tax, business rates and other sources.
- How a per pupil
funding entitlement for the schools assessment should be derived – top down, or
bottom up, using activity led funding. How this should be presented in terms
of its relationship to the funding that individual schools receive.
- How
additional educational needs should be funded.
- How the additional costs
of employing staff in areas where local authorities need to pay more to recruit
and retain them, and other non-staff costs should be funded.
- How points
3 to 5 should be used to make up the schools funding assessment.
- How
the LEA funding assessment should be constructed: to what extent points 4 and
5 are relevant, and what additional factors should play a part – eg sparsity.
- What
principles should underlie the distribution of funding amongst schools locally.
- How
special and specific grants will fit into the new system: eg school standards
grant; three year old grant; class size grant; teachers pay grant; and the Standards
Fund.
- How the transition to the new system should be managed, taking account
of changes to post-16 funding and the wider review of Revenue Grant Distribution.
Points 1, 2 are concerned with the system as a whole. Point 3 is relevant to the
funding assessment for schools only. Points 4 and 5 are relevant to the schools
funding assessment, but it is possible that they could play a part in the LEA
funding assessment too. Points 9 and 10 are relevant to the system as a whole.
Membership
The
membership of the group has been drawn widely: from central and local government,
unions representing both teaching and non-teaching staff, schools and governors’
organisations, and the churches. A full list of members is attached.
The
aim is to allow all interested parties to contribute to the work of the group,
and to bring a wide range of expertise to bear on the issues under consideration.
A technical group has also been set up, to consider issues in detail, from the
perspective of those responsible for the day to day running of the system: it
will report to the main group,
Working Methods
The group
is scheduled to meet every four weeks, for the next 6 months. We will aim to
circulate papers (via e-mail) one week in advance of each meeting. It is intended
that the proceedings of the group should be as open as possible:
