DfEE Green Paper (22/10/1997) Appendix 2 Funding and the SEN framework

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Appendix 2

Funding and the SEN framework

1. One of the reasons why many parents and schools seek statutory assessments and statements is that this sometimes seems to be the only route to funding to meet children's needs. Under some approaches to delegation of school budgets, similar financial arguments can apply to the placing of pupils on particular stages of the Code of Practice.

2. Excellence in schools announced a new framework for Local Management of Schools (LMS). A technical consultation paper, Framework for the Organisation of Schools, issued in August, set out the main elements that might be included in legislation on this. We shall be consulting later this year on the detail of this new framework, including the allocation and delegation of funds to schools.

3. Many LEAs already delegate to schools the funding for all or most SEN provision at stages 1-3. In general we encourage such delegation. It means that the funding framework reflects schools' responsibilities under the Code. And it allows schools to take their own decisions about purchasing additional support, whether from their own LEA's SEN services, or from other agencies, including other LEAs or the private sector. In future the sources of such support should also include special schools. But we recognise arguments for retention by LEAs of some funding to support pupils at stages 1-3. Retention can ensure the maintenance of high quality LEA services, particularly for low incidence needs with which schools may be unfamiliar. LEAs may be best placed to promote and support increasing inclusion of pupils with SEN without the need for them always to have statements, and will have an important role in monitoring the use of delegated funding for stages 1-3. We shall welcome views on how to achieve the right balance between delegating funds to schools for functions which they can best carry out, while allowing LEAs to retain funds for functions for which they are best placed, taking account also of the regional arrangements discussed in Chapter 5.

QUESTION: What needs to be done for the new LMS arrangements to support effectively the responsibilities of both schools and LEAs for SEN provision at stages 1-3 of the Code?

4. Under the new framework, we expect to mirror LEAs' duties by proposing that funding for statutory assessments, administration and review of statements should be amongst items which LEAs can retain centrally. So would funding for provision specified in statements, but we shall consider the arguments for promoting delegation of some of this funding, both in order to support the approaches to inclusion in Chapter 4, and for the reasons discussed below.

5. We will expect LEAs to review their LMS arrangements:

to clarify the amount of funding delegated to schools for SEN, and
to eliminate features which may be acting against children's educational interests by providing purely financial incentives for statements.

6. Although funding delegated to schools is not earmarked for particular purposes, LEAs should identify explicitly for schools all the elements of delegated budgets which are related to SEN. These will usually be:

an element for SEN within general per pupil funding, and
additional funds delegated, whether through formula factors or on the basis of audit, specifically for special or additional educational needs.

LEAs should make clear to schools the levels and types of need which they are expected to meet from their delegated budgets and what the LEA will meet from centrally retained funds. For pupils with statements, each statement should say which elements of the specified provision are to be met from the school's delegated budget, and which "extra" elements the LEA will separately fund.

7. To limit the purely financial incentives for statements, LEAs should consider the formula they use to distribute funding for SEN. The possibility of such incentives is reduced where objective proxy measures such as free school meals are used as a starting point. It may be possible to develop other such indicators, drawing for example on the results of baseline assessment. LEAs will continue to be free to base funding on the reported incidence of SEN. But where they choose this approach, they need to ensure that it does not influence assessments of children's needs.

8. LEAs should avoid large steps in funding, whether between stage 3 and statements, or between Code of Practice stages or local equivalents.

Funding arrangements should as far as possible reflect the continuum of special needs, and should not result in substantial differences in funding level where there are relatively small differences in need. Partial delegation by formula of the funding for statements might assist in establishing this continuum, although funding arrangements would need to recognise that the number of children with statements in a school, and the cost of their statements, will vary from year to year.

31/08/2000