Agenda item

GB gave a presentation on Early Years Funding as follows:

·         3 main areas:

o   How BCC gets funding from Government;

o   How the funding gets passed on to providers;

o   The effect of changes to participation leading to surplus/deficit;

·         The funding in from Government was worked out in a different way to the funding out to providers;

·         Funding in from Government:

o   Means of allocating funding for free early education and childcare for 3 & 4 year olds was universal 15 hours + 30 hours for eligible working parents;

o   This was introduced in 2017 to ensure fair distribution of funding and transparency;

o   For 3 & 4 year olds:

§  Base rate;

§  + Additional needs (Free School Meals; Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and English as an Additional Language);

§  Area costs (which differ in different parts of the country);

o   2 year olds – separate funding arrangement at a regional rate (BCC was the  same as neighbouring LAs)

o   19/20 rates:

§  3 & 4 year olds - £5.69;

§  2 year olds -  £5.43;

o   Census data –

             3-4 year old 9863 PTE pupil numbers;

             2 year old 1210 PTE pupil numbers;

o   Other funding within block:

§  EY Pupil Premium = £299,340 (similar to primary and secondary);

§  Disability Access Fund = £99,630 (this may add to the underspend for this year as forecast at 50% of budget)

§  Maintained Nursery School Supplement £743,670 (BCC was trying to sustain funding at 2016/17 level prior to EYNFF and may seek approval from Schools Forum to use the EY underspend to top up this supplement again this year);

o   Total Block = £36.876m

·         Funding out to providers

o   For 3 & 4 year olds:

§  Universal Base rate

§  95% pass through

§  Additional supplements (up to 10%)

·         Deprivation (mandatory)

·         Quality

·         Emerging SEN

o   For 2 year olds:

§  No pass through requirement and no additional supplements

·         How funding is received and spending calculated:

o   Funding received was based on one Census figure (January) each year, but taken from last Jan (5/12ths) and current Jan (7/12ths) to account for variations in take up;

o   Expenditure was calculated based on 3 x different census points and averaged;

o   Changes in participation levels had a budgetary impact.

In response to questioning, GB confirmed:

• The number of children referred to those taking up places, not those eligible. 
• If additional supplements were agreed this would come off the overall funding so children not entitled to supplements would get less.  It was commented that additional supplements may benefit the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children.

Early Years Representatives made the following comments;

• It was acknowledged that there was a number of eligible children whose families were not taking up places and more work was needed to inform people of their entitlements;
• Participation in Children Centres had decreased and family awareness of nursery provision had gone down as a consequence;
• Birth registration data had only been available for 12 months and so the information had not been available to target families;
• One of challenges for Nursery Providers was that it was difficult when income depended on the number of children and this figure changed throughout the year.  It was difficult to appoint staff on this basis as well as meet other annual costs and this was the reason that many nursery providers were in deficit;
• It was difficult for Nursery Providers to plan 5 year budgets when they did not know how much income they were getting from one term to the next;
• Current birth rate data suggested that the birth rate was starting to rise again and the need for nursery provision would increase accordingly.

It was requested that the slides from the presentation be circulated to Schools Forum Members.