School fund formula needs ‘urgent review’

The formula only came into force at the beginning of April but already the Liberal Democrats and Greens believe it has not been properly tested. Lib Dem and Greens group leader Councillor James Gibson-Watt said: “It is already clear the impact of the new formula on some schools is causing severe damage to their budgets and threatening education provision for pupils.

“Some schools have gone from being in a healthy financial position to one where they will be forced in to serious deficit within a year or two unless they take draconian action and significantly reduce staffing.

“It is also clear that the obvious flaws in the previous funding formula, which saw schools of a similar size and make-up receiving very different levels of per-pupil funding, have not been resolved by the new formula. My understanding is that the new formula was not properly modelled before it was introduced. An urgent review of the new formula needs to take place.

“I have written to the cabinet member to ask that she institutes this review and while it is going on that the council provides a full range of support measures to those schools being most adversely affected by the changes.”

Education portfolio holder Councillor Myfanwy Alexander said: “The old funding formula had not changed in step with developments in education and increasingly, there were anomalies in it, leading to unfairness. The formula review process, led from the start by governors and headteachers, sought to distribute the available resources as fairly as possible.

“£1m of extra funding was found for Powys schools in last year’s very challenging budget and this, combined with the renewed formula, provides our schools with stable funding, sufficient to meet our statutory obligations.

“We have removed £2m from the schools’ central services budget to reduce costs but with pupil transport costs running at £10.5 million annually,  I would encourage everyone to lobby those both in Cardiff and Westminster to ensure that pupils living in the countryside are fairly treated.”

At a scrutiny meeting in January chairman of the Funding Review Group, school governor, Graham Taylor told councillors that the funding formula was £5.5 million less than was needed.