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]
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Date:
School Budgets 2015/16
Neil Hardwick / Caroline Carter
27 February 2015
FAO: HEADTEACHERS / CHAIRS OF GOVERNORS
Dear Colleague
INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL BUDGETS 2015/16
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.
The VLE can be accessed through the following link:
https://www.itslearning.com/index.aspx?customerid=&username=&redirectlogin=itslearning.com
&MustUseSsl=true&
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.
The ‘I Point’ system can be access via the Council’s Intranet:
Select:
Select:
Select:
‘I’ on the Intranet ‘A to Z’ Bar
The 2nd / lower of the ‘I Point’ labelled links.
‘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.
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:


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).
GUIDE TO YOUR SCHOOL BUDGET INFORMATION
(1) School’s Block Budget Share: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.
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.
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.
Central Retained Grant & De-Delegations:
The Local Authority retains funding centrally to provide the following services which are limited
at 2014/15 expenditure levels:




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:
Secondary LA Maintained Schools:
 Free School Meal Eligibility Services
 Trade Union facilities time
 Contingency funds for exceptional circumstances
Primary LA Maintained Schools:
 Free School Meal Eligibility Services
 Behaviour Support Services
 Trade Union facilities time
 Contingency funds for exceptional circumstances.
Nursery Schools: (Not part of Schools Block, but note re: De-delegated services only).
 Trade union facilities time.
Notional SEN Budget
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.
To assist Schools with the calculation, we have notionally assumed that approximately:


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.
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.
(2) Early Years Block funding.
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.
(3) High Cost Block Pupils.
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.
(4) Pupil Premium Funding.
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.

However, 2015/16 rates payable how been confirmed as:-
£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’.
(5) Universal Free School Meals for Infants:Commencing September 2014, every child in full time reception, year 1 and year 2, in statefunded 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.
(6) Early Years Pupil Premium: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.
(7) Devolved Formula Capital (DFC)
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.
2015/16 confirmed pupil rates are unchanged from 2014/15:-
Nursery / Primary
Secondary
Special / PRU
£11.25
£16.88
£33.75
Final school allocations will be confirmed at the end of April 2015, once the 1st April Academy
conversion adjustments are clarified.
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.
Yours faithfully,
Neil Hardwick
Group Finance Manager (Children & Young People).