The Financing of Maintained Schools (England) Regulations 2002

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These regulations prescribe the expenditure which makes up the local education authority’s “local schools budget” for the financial year beginning on 1st April 2002.

These regulations specify the nature of the planned expenditure which a local education authority may deduct from their local schools budget in order to arrive at their “individual schools budget” for that financial year.

An authority’s individual schools budget is to be divided between the schools which they maintain in the form of budget shares for each school. These regulations provide the basis on which a local education authority may determine the amount from their individual schools budget to be allocated to each school as its budget share for that financial year.

These regulations require a local education authority to deal in a scheme prepared by them with specified matters connected with the financing of schools which they maintain.

The most significant changes from the Financing of Maintained Schools (England) Regulations 2001 (“the 2001 Regulations”) are as follows:

• Under the 2001 Regulations, the amount allocated per pupil in an authority’s formula was subject to a minimum annual increase of 2.5 per cent. over each of three categories (namely key stages 1 and 2, key stages 3 and 4, and above compulsory school age). Under regulation 11(7) this no longer applies to the latter category of pupils over compulsory school age.

Regulation 16(2) imposes a new requirement on local education authorities to include in their formulae a factor based on the incidence of social deprivation in the schools they maintain.

Regulation 17 requires local education authorities to include, in the budget shares of schools with sixth forms, sums allocated by the Learning and Skills Council in respect of those sixth forms. It also permits local education authorities to top-up such funding; and makes provision for certain deductions from it.

Regulation 27(1) requires a certain percentage of the individual schools budget to be allocated in one or more ways which are described as “pupil-led”. In these regulations, this percentage is lowered to 75 per cent., and the prescribed list of possibilities for pupil-led funding includes funding by the Learning and Skills Council.

Under the 2001 Regulations, School Standards Grant was not allocated to schools in respect of which proposals for discontinuance had already been approved at the beginning of the financial year. Regulation 29(5) qualifies this where such closure is postponed till on or after 1st April 2003. Conversely, regulation 29(6) ensures that School Standards Grant is recoverable from a school in respect of which proposals for discontinuance are approved after 1st April 2002.

Schedule 2 provides for certain additional factors which may be taken into account in a funding formula at the discretion of the local education authority. Under these regulations, some paragraphs have been omitted, preventing local education authorities from taking specific account of water or sewerage charges; cleaning of school premises; the employment of nursery nurses; and payroll administration costs. Paragraph 28 of the Schedule allows local education authorities for the first time to take account in their formulae of provision made by a school for pupils registered at other schools, pursuant to regulations made under section 50(3)(b) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998.