Early Years Funding For 2012/2013

[SueJ]

I'm on our Borough's committee for the pre-school formula and also on the School's forum where the amount is discussed and ok'd by all the schools. Don't if people realise it is the schools forum who ok the formula and the amounts. A schools forum is head of local schools and governors. From this september all schools forum minutes of meetings will be available for the public to see, as before it was a closed meeting. If you find out when your next schools forum meeting is as "the public" you are allowed to go and listen to the discussions.

Let me know if any one goes and what other LA's are doing!!

 

This thread links with one that I started about paying 3% staff pensions. This and other concerns about funding levels led to me sending letters to Michael Gove and Ian Duncan-Smith - if you have read this thread you will know that I had a reply via my local MP from Sarah Teather which basically said that the government pay LAs enough and that it is up to LAs to ensure that providers are paid enough. I have therefore been asking lots of questions of my Schools Forum rep to clarify things. Disappointingly no one seems to want to give a clear answer to a direct questions e.g.,

 

When asking how much the LA gets from the government per funded child and how much the LA top slices my schools forum rep said I needed to look at the budget - why not just answer the question :angry:

Given that the LA last looked at provider costs in 2009 and that guidance to LAs suggests they should review provider costs regularly I asked when provider costs were last updated by the LA the answer came back that the dedicated schools grant hadn't been increased since 2009 - this is not an answer to the question - whether or not the LA has had an increase in the budget is not the same thing as knowing what local provider costs actually are.

 

Given this sort of response I have been trying to dig a bit deeper to find out if this is true and have accessed my LAs budget to look at the numbers to see if this argument stacks up. LA budgets are available on-line - I haven't had to do anything suspect to look at it

 

There are no explanatory notes only figures and this has raised another set of questions so I am asking on here to see if anyone knows the answers (the figures relate to my LA but the basic calculations are probably pretty standard across LAs)

 

In my LA the budget for early years funded children works on full time equivalent (FTE) children - is a FTE child based on 950 hours per 38 weeks?

A FTE child attracts a guaranteed funded unit from the government which in my LA equates to £4.90 per hour.

This amount then drops to £4.36 per hour per child for the Early Years budget allocation - why? (The budget gives no indication) - are early years children worth less in terms of £s than school age children?

This amount then drops again to £4.04 per hour if you take out the early years SEN budget and the early years schools forum contribution

In my area this is then split down again into a base rate, a deprivation supplement and a quality supplement.

 

If an early years FTE child gets £4.90 per hour per child (Govmnt to LA) the headline rate starts out fairly low and then given that 86p per hour per funded FTE child is top sliced off by the LA to pay for the services they provide the actual rates to providers drops even more.

 

My LA provided me with a detailed funding matrix to show how they had worked out provider costs - some of the fundamental cost calculations in this matrix need to be challenged however that is another issue. I have however asked for a funding matrix from my LA to show how they have calculated their costs this has not been forthcoming. Without demonstrating an understanding of LA costs the government would only turn round and say that LA top slicing %s could be cut.

 

This is a wholly unsatisfactory situation whereby funding levels have been calculated downwards rather than upwards and neither the LA or the government actually have any handle on what costs are in order to work out funding levels - Arggggggggggggggggggggggggggg :angry: :angry: :angry:

[Cait]

Hmm, well I can't remember the exact figure, but ours is something like £2.86 or something, so a fair bit of slicing going on!

[Guest]

Ok, from my knowledge, and this would need checking in your own authority as so many do things in different ways, but

1) It might be your rep doesn't actually know how to answer the question. I'm not being rude here but the forum meetings I attended over the last few years are so complex and detailed and so much is not relevant to EYs that it might be a bit beyond them when faced with a very specific question. If you had approached me, I would have wanted to get your questions in writing and then gone away and spoken to the authority people on the forum for clarification on answering it. That's not to say I don't understand anything but I'd want to be sure I was telling you the right thing. It might be worth putting your queries in writing and asking the rep to get back to you again.

2) In my authority the top slicing was for adminstrative costs applied to the PVI settings. This is also charged to maintained settings through another mechanism so effectively the costs are the same.

3) The provider costs audits are often not effective as many providers do not fit the template given (we didn't so I just wrote down all sorts of other stuff to try to show how much replacing us would cost the authority, covering the voluntary work done by committee members for eg). Other providers are reluctant to provide detailed costs for "business reasons" - this was something as the PVI rep I tried to get over by pointing out the information wasn't available in ways that would undermine their business confidentiality, but I wasn't successful and I was told this was not unusual.

4) The SEN contribution provides you with access to SEN support which you don't know when you might need to call on (in my authority it does anyway). If everyone pays in a little for this it doesn't fall to each setting to buy the service as required which for some settings might not be affordable when it was required. Sorry I don't know what the schools forum contribution is about!

5) The cost per child age related (or AWPU, age weighted pupil unit) I think is set by central government but I'm not sure. It is different for EYs, primary, Special and secondary pupils. I believe it is meant to represent the needs of different ages but I'm only the messenger here!

 

Hope that helps you a bit.

[lynned55]

I think I am just about keeping up with these figures but are you saying Sue that all children (regardless of which LA) they live in receive £4.90 per head? Sorry badly worded- all LA's receive £4.90 per child and it really is up to them how much they decide to slice off it?

 

I think I may start to ask our LA a few questions, as you say it is 3 year snow since anyone asked us how much it cost to run.

The problem was/is that so many groups failed to answer in the first place. I think a lot of them thought if certain people saw what their bank balances were/are their funding could be cut.

[SueJ]

I think I am just about keeping up with these figures but are you saying Sue that all children (regardless of which LA) they live in receive £4.90 per head? Sorry badly worded- all LA's receive £4.90 per child and it really is up to them how much they decide to slice off it?

 

 

I don't think all LAs get the same guaranteed funding unit but I too am trying to get a better understanding of this v.complex system of funding - information about the dedicated schools grant (DSG) can be found here but I haven't delved deeply enough to see if there is a document that says what each LAs DSG is.

 

http://www.education.gov.uk/a00200465/schools-funding-settlement-2012-13

[sunnyday]

 

 

I don't think all LAs get the same guaranteed funding unit but I too am trying to get a better understanding of this v.complex system of funding - information about the dedicated schools grant (DSG) can be found here but I haven't delved deeply enough to see if there is a document that says what each LAs DSG is.

 

http://www.education...tlement-2012-13

 

Thanks for that link Sue

[SueJ]

Hi Holly

 

Thanks for your reply. I see where you are coming from and at least you have given some straight answers. I know my rep. on the forum v. well and I understand that she has spoken to the schools forum chair so she is in a bit of a piggy in the middle situation - I think what I am most cross about is that when asked a direct question e.g, how much does and early years child get from the govmnt per year I am told to look at the budget - why not just give me the figure - I suspect that the schools forum chair has perhaps supplied this "look at the budget" answer BUT as the PVI rep perhaps she should have not been so readily fobbed off with the "look at the budget" answer and pressed for the answer.

 

There are lots of issues surrounding this (very complex issue) I know but unless providers get some understanding of how they are funded and how early years funding sits within the local authority funding they can't really make a strong case to anyone to try to get funding that is adequate - trying to bamboozle anyone who askes questions by pointing them to budgets with no explainatory notes or keys to the acronyms used is not only not helpful it smacks of trying to keep up a smokescreen a bit like keeping mushrooms in the dark and feeding them ******** :lol:

[Guest]

No Sue I totally agree. Whoever is not answering the questions needs to be and if providers feel uneasy about what is going on steps should be taken to make sure everyone is fully informed. As an aside I would say that as far as I am aware not every local authority will receive the same amount per child. Our LA used to be part of the f40 group which was the group of 40 authorities which were least funded, not just for education, but it obviously has an impact. I think, if I remember correctly, that the amount of funding is partly determined by the returns sent in by an authority of how much they have spent on education in the last year - a bit like that idea that they always dig up the roads in March so they have spent all their budget for the year and can't be given less the next year, based on the fact they didn't spend it all!

[Guest]

I hope I can explain some of it in simple terms.

The government gives each Local Authority a set amount based on a 3 year budget plan. this is then paid to schools and Early years settings on a Formula that is constructed by the Officers of the LA who then present it to the various subgroups who either agree or not. This is then taken to the Schools forum who VOTE on whether to pass the calculations or not.

From what I can gather all schools forums now are made up of approx 2/4 Reps for each school section Primary, Junior, Secondary, Early years, Academies and Special needs. Reps are Head Teachers and Governors. also 2 Church Reps

 

The Accountants of the LA put forward a formula on how much per child per head for various costs i.e. floor space, rent, wages, etc. These should be calculated on the costings that were done by Early Years settings back in 2009. LA's gave a increase last year for cost of living rise (ours was 5p lol)

 

As a rep on the schools forum I find that so much of it does not have to do with Early years that you nearly blank out the rest, they are brilliant at waffling £'s at you that you have a job to follow!!!

 

We do put forward things from our subgroup of reps that are all early years but LA officers alsways seem to make it sound different to what we had agreed in one meeting to what is put forward to the Schools Forum. Also it seems like a bit like a Judge in a court as they make "reccommendation" which inevertably get voted on.

 

From being on this Forum the difference is collosal on the difference between LA's when I am sure if we looked at the cost's of most of early years setting over the country they wouldn't vary that much. certainly not wages maybe rent would be the biggest difference. Resources etc would be the same.

 

I still feel that as early years settings ina very big pond we will never get a fair share. I think we should make our own pond!!!!!!

 

Maybe Steve or some one on here could start a petition or survey to see what the variants are to let main government know. Should we not start our own Union or Association for costings. I know we have NDNA and PLA but I never feel they get the point across as they are to much in it for the politics and their jobs. In case you hadn't gathered I don't belong to either. I didn't feel the money I paid to them would give me anything or that their voice was being heard.

 

don't know if that helped any one but I enjoyed the RANT!!! :)

[Rea]

Oh gosh, you rant away, I've been doing a fair bit myself lately and it does the soul good!

 

A survey would be a good idea, the question of top slicing is not something I feel I can start asking for a while, not while I'm asking about CRBs, I have a feeling my name is getting to be too well known already in our LA :rolleyes:

[Rea]

Does anyone know where I can find the Birmingham Schools forum? I've searched google but I cant see anything.

[sunnyday]

Steph - thank you so much for that info - very interesting and helpful.

[hopeytg]

Just seen this thread and apologies for not reading it all - but I found out last week that private and voluntary settings were allocated different rates of funding - this was news to me. In our area voluntary settings get £3.30 and private get £3.41 - when asked why? the reason came back that it was 'agreed' that voluntary settings generally had less overheads??? - not sure how they came up with that theory - our overheads are certainly no less because we have a committee! - It just seems so unfair

[Panders]

Well when we began all this, we got more because we were packaway and it was felt that our costs would be higher! I don't think it mattered that we were private rather than voluntary - maybe they thought staff costs were far less if there was a more "voluntary" aspect to that type of setting.

[Rea]

I'm sure our staff would love to know they were volunteering!

[hopeytg]

I think some of mine think they are with the awful wage I pay - when we finally get recognition for the excellant work we all do?

[Guest]

We get a 5p difference added as a Profit margin!!!!

[redjayne]

I also sit on a Schools Forum as a governor but also my PVI Manager hat gets put on at regular intervals. I struggle with the way the funding is allocated but it is hard because, despite my feelings about Early Years being underfunded, there is only a finite amount of money and it is very much a case of 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' if Early Years had more then there would be less for all of the other sectors, and as that is ultimately the places we are sending our children onto, is it fair for them to be well off with us when there is the possibility that later in their education they will have to go without ? We will always be small fish in a big pond, and yes we are as valuable and as all other sectors but there will never be parity with teachers and schools because that's not what we are ?

[Guest]

I think I can top that £115.00 per morning 4 hours

[lashes2508]

blimey ifyourhappy where are you and why so high ???

[sunnyday]

blimey ifyourhappy where are you and why so high ???

 

I thought it must be typo :blink: if not - no wonder she's happy!

[louby loo]

I think I can top that £115.00 per morning 4 hours

 

.......... just seen you advertise a job :lol:

[lynned55]

Sorry got a bit lost now. Is the 115 for four hours funding, wages or fees?

 

Bit confused doesn't take much now!

Edited November 2, 2012 by lynned55