Devon Education Forum Decisions

At the recent Devon Education Forum meeting, Mrs Faith Butler, DAG board member was elected Chair for a 2 year term of office  and Mr Alex Walmsley, DAG board member was elected Vice-Chair, also for a 2 year term of office.

Following the recent Devon funding consultation, 39% of schools representing 38,000 pupils responded.  Those responses then enabled the following decisions to be taken at the meeting for the year 2023/2024:

• Set the Minimum Funding Guarantee (MFG) to 0%
• Adjust the sparsity factor should actual funding received be lower than the indicative amount stated in the consultation
• Distribute any unallocated funds in the following order prior to using surplus growth fund, (should actual funding received be higher than the indicative amount stated in the consultation): firstly bring the Sparsity factor up to the NFF rates stated for 2023-24 and secondly add to the MFG up to a maximum of 0.5% per 2023-24 guidance.

The LA Proposal to transfer 0.5% from the Schools Block to the High Needs Block for 2023-24 through a one-off transfer of the growth fund surplus was not supported by DEF and the local authority are now to make a Disapplication Request to the Secretary of State.

Headteacher and Governor representatives of Local Authority Maintained schools were also asked to consider the de-delegation request to fund a continuation of the DCC School Improvement Service (estimated cost £18.81 per pupil). Given concerns around cost, capacity and effectiveness, this decision was deferred to the January meeting of DEF to enable the Local Authority to provide more clarity around the School Improvement offer and further consultation with its schools.

DEF agreed the central services funding allocations presented in the consultation to continue to contribute £60,000 for the Emotional, Psychological and Social Wellbeing Service,  to top slice £223,000 from the Schools Block to fund the Phase Association (Devon SLS and DAG) for one year and to retain the funding centrally at the increased £5.99 rate per pupil (£550,000) for Schools Admissions Service.

Would you be interested in representing governors or trustees on this important forum by becoming a DAG Representative? DAG is currently looking for primary maintained governors, primary academy trustees and secondary maintained governors to fill DAG vacancies.  Please contact [email protected] for further information.

The minutes of DEF Meeting 23 November 2023 have now been published.