Written evidence submitted by Crookhorn College

Positional Statement to Hampshire County Council from the Governing Body of Crookhorn College

March 2024

This financial year Crookhorn has gone back into deficit having come out of deficit only in 21/22. The factors that have led the College to this situation are out of our control.  We, as Governors would like to explain in detail how the deficit has come about and how frustrating the current financial situation is for a hardworking school, serving a deprived and significantly above average SEN community. We will start with our solution and then work backwards to explain how we have arrived at this point.

Solution:

If the notional SEND budget for each school became an actual SEND budget and was aligned with number of EHCPs, for which schools must fund the first £6000 pounds, rather than prior attainment funds and small pockets ringfenced from existing IDACI Index and FSM monies, then you would have a fairer system where the money is following the needs of the child.  This simple step would go a significant way to addressing the inequality and pressures within the funding system for schools with a high level of SEND.  It would also mean that the students were getting appropriate support because the school receives funding to support their needs.

In addition, it would go a long way to achieving the aim of inclusive schools across Hampshire, which is part of the Hampshire vision, because if schools understand that there is adequate funding to meet the needs of these students based on the number of them, they will be more willing to take them on and this might stop the issue of ‘magnet’ schools for SEN.

Explanation of SEND funding in relation to the notional SEN budget:

We would now like to explain the reasoning behind our solution to you specifically round SEND notional funding, before we go into broader detail about the individual position of Crookhorn.

As you go through this statement, you will see that there are 3 main issues: the first one is the pay rises and the inadequate funding for this, specifically support staff; secondly the cost-of-living increases; thirdly the funding structure of SEND. 

Whilst it is not in Hampshire’s gift to mitigate the impact of the pay rises or cost of living increases, which affect all schools, we do believe something can be done about the SEN funding structure.  It is very clear that contrary to other countries, like Finland, that run successful funding systems resulting in positive student outcomes for all students but specifically SEND, the SEND funding system in this country is designed on a model where the money does not necessarily follow the needs of the child. 

If you look at the notional SEND budget, which comes through every school’s DSG, it is clear to see where the problem lies. This notional SEND budget is not worked out on the needs of the children within the school but is rather worked out on other factors, such as the size of the school and prior attainment. It might be perceived that if a school has low prior attainment, they might get a significantly higher amount of prior attainment funding in the DSG- 100% of which goes to the notional SEN budget. This would be because the assumption is made that lower attainment equals a higher number of SEN and therefore EHCP’s.

We can test the reality of this using some actual figures relating to schools in Hampshire:

So, the table above tells us a couple of key points. Firstly, with two similar size schools with similar prior attainment (PA), School A gets £ 65,009 less funding that School B. However, School A has only 12 EHCP’s whereas School B has 55. There is clearly no correlation here between PA and SEN. However, because School B has significantly more EHCP’s it has to fund an additional £258,000 from its notional SEN budget based on the fact that schools fund the first £6,000 of every EHCP. Likewise, School C and B are equitable in size and PA but with approximately half the number of EHCP’s. Therefore, although School C gets £18,448 less than School B they have 26 less EHCP’s so have to fund a basic of £156,000 less than School B out of their notional SEN budget.

It is clear therefore that the cost of SEN now, is connected to the EHCP’s and the traditional funding structure for the ‘notional SEN budget’ is out of date particularly since 2015 when the SEND reforms were made and the huge increase in EHCP’s started. This means that a school like Crookhorn, with a high proportion of SEND EHCP’s (a magnet school), gets roughly the same amount of money in its notional SEND budget as another school with significantly lower SEND numbers.  As a result, we face an exponential pressure on our budget in comparison to the other schools. School A and school C are used in benchmarking by Hampshire with School B due to similarities in size and other contextual factors.  

We would now like to bring County’s attention to other factors that have affected the outcome of our budget this year.

The Crookhorn situation, as an in-depth case study:

At the budget revision in November 2022, the College was predicting an in-year deficit for 23/24 of: £289,057.

In May of 2022 we were predicting our teaching staff costs at £3,350,032 and our support staff costs at £1,633,537

For the 23/24 budget the College received additional funding from the government in the form of:

1. MSAG (Mainstream Schools Additional Grant- to cover the cost of living and the 5% teacher pay rise for 22/23): £198,066
2. Teachers Pay grant (to go towards the 6.5% pay rise) = £59,053. This covers five twelfths of the staff costs from September to April.

This gave the College an additional total income of £257,119

In May 2023, when the budget was set for 23/24 the College was predicting an in-year deficit of £25,264

In November 23 we were predicting an in-year deficit of £35,586 for 23/24 and a predicted in year deficit for 24/25 of £298,983.

Impact of pay rises:

By October 23 we had confirmed the 6.5% pay increase for teaching staff. 3.5% was in the budget software. We then received the teacher pay grant to cover 3.5% meaning there was an additional 0.5% in the budgeting software which we were advised could go towards the support staff pay rise which we don’t receive funding for. 

Support staff pay rises did not get paid until December 23. Support staff pay rises varied between 9.5% and 3.88% as it was agreed as a lump sum for each pay scale (£1925 FTE up to Grade G and 3.88% above this).

From May 22, and our predicted costs for teachers and support staff, and March 24, and the actual costs of teaching and support staff, we can see the following additional costs:

Teachers= £161,521

Support staff £369,764

We did of course get the additional income from MSAG and the TPG of £ 257,119. However, once these are discounted, the total cost to the College is a further £274,166.

The main problem is that the Government assumed that all schools could afford a 3% increase on teachers pay. Looking at our predicted in year budget for 22/23 we could not afford the 3%.

The government also did not fund the pay increase for support staff.  In a school like Crookhorn which has significantly above average SEN and EHCP’s, the support staff pay rises was destined to be devastating.

To compound the issue, we have a further sharp rise in the number of EHCP’s in the College. In January 2021 we had 22. For Sept 2022 we had 40 EHCP’s in the College. In September 23 we had a further increase to 56 EHCP’s. (Just to note we are expecting an increase to 66 EHCPs for September 24).

The Impact of SEND specifically to Crookhorn beyond the notional SEN budget:

The impact of SEND, and particularly EHCP students, financially on Crookhorn College is significant. To understand the impact, we need to explore how the SEND funding actually works out in reality in a school like Crookhorn:

Total additional costs (without factoring the cost-of-living increases):

In total then our additional costs this year, which have been virtually impossible to predict, stands at £585,938. It is impossible to be strategic around such unpredictability.

County suggested solutions to date:

When EFS came in November 23 to meet with the College Business Manager, a lengthy discussion was had around the in-year deficit for 24/25. EFS recommended at that point, that to reduce in-year deficit the College needed to:

• Reduce number of High Needs students.  This is not our choice; we are directed to take HN students based on parental choice and allocation by SEN.

• A reduction in staffing.  See benchmarking table below.

Due to our concerns about our in-year deficit specifically in 24/25 and the advice we were given by EFS, the Headteacher and the Business Manager met with various county managers to discuss the situation. (Admissions, EFS and Inclusion and Secondary Schools Manager).

The point made by the Headteacher and the Business Manager in these meetings to County was:

what is more important to Hampshire- an inclusive school or a balanced budget, because as the funding currently stands you can’t have both.

Extensive discussions were had around the fact that we could take in more students because we are oversubscribed, but it was agreed that we don’t have the physical capacity on the College site to take in more safely. Having examined forecast data, we have to date managed to buck the trend for declining numbers. However, forecast data indicates clearly that birthrates continue to fall, so we might not be able to take in extra students in future, which will compound our financial problems further.

First Choice Applications for September

Hampshire benchmarking

From examining Hampshire benchmarking data the Headteacher and the Business Manager also established the following for EFS with regards to staffing:

• Reduction of support staff is not viable. If we breakdown our support staff on the bench marking, we can see that our TA FTE is 22.1 compared to Hampshire average of 18.45. Our TA FTE is higher than county average because our number of SEN students is almost double the county average. Our auxiliary staff is 11.97 compared to 5.48 Hampshire avg. Our auxiliary staff is so large due to inhouse cleaning and catering.
• Reduction of teaching staff is not viable – number of spare periods on the T/T = below 100.  You need 100 or above to create flexibility as required to ensure T/T works fluidly.
• Next year the Headteacher has already reduced the number of option subjects by 2 (Child development & Business Studies). Reduction in options has enabled the College to not require an increase in teaching staff despite the current increase in numbers.
• The College moved to a new structure of TA support in September 2022.  The new model is more sustainable both financially and from a managing staffing viewpoint.  If we had remained on the old model of support the increase of EHCP students to the College would have meant an additional 9 FTE TA’s were required.  The new model has meant we only needed to recruit 4 additional FTE TA’s saving £95,350.
•  

Conclusion/Future Position:

Hampshire want schools to be inclusive and be able to manage High Needs students.  We do this.

We are a popular, oversubscribed school as a result and are able to show that our predicted student numbers go against the trend for the local area and continue to increase.

We are looking to be strategic where we can, to ensure the future quality of provision, but based on the structure of SEN funding, this is a real and significant challenge. The positive well-being, and future outcomes of our students are at the very heart of all that we do. We do not spend a penny anywhere unnecessarily, that is not in the best interests of the children in the Crookhorn community- yet we struggle for space, resource and the necessary funding to meet the huge spectrum of need that we serve and are predicted to serve.

We are in the process of consultation for a resource provision for September 2025. This will further increase the number of EHCP’s that we have in the College, but we believe that it will bring significant benefits to the whole College community. By going ahead with this resource provision, we are effectively saving the Government £2.4m by 2030. These savings though come at a high cost for the College which is on the front line of the SEN crisis, that the country is currently experiencing.

To have a future and to be sustainable to meet the needs of the students now, there needs to be an urgent shift in the funding structure for SEN specifically as stated in our conclusion at the start.

January 2025

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