DfE consultation into School Improvement Funding

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SENT FROM: GARETH DRAWMER, HEAD OF ACHIEVEMENT AND LEARNING

Dear Colleagues,

As you may be aware, the government has launched a new consultation Reforming how local authorities’ school improvement functions are funded.

As a summary, the government are proposing to:

  1. Remove the School Improvement Monitoring & Brokering Grant (‘the Grant’), which is currently allocated to local authorities to support school improvement activities; and
  2. Make provisions within the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations for the financial year (FY) 2022-23 to allow local authorities to fund all of their school improvement activity (including all core school improvement activities) via de-delegation from schools’ budget shares.

The recommendation in the consultation is that next years grant is reduced by 50%, with full removal of the grant by FY2023/24.

We would be grateful for school leaders to respond to the government consultation detailing how this would impact on your school.  Within Buckinghamshire this grant funds the Side by Side support for intervention and prevention schools and school improvement activities such for all schools, such as the Side by Side conferences programme, the development of Side by Side Champion networks, Liaison Group research work and The Buckinghamshire Challenge project for closing the gap.

If you would like to respond to the DfE, please click on here for the link. The DfE deadline for responses is Friday 26th November.

Kind regards,

Gareth Drawmer

Head of Achievement and Learning