Some of the country’s most vulnerable children are set to suffer from the government’s controversial changes to school funding, a financial expert has warned.
The national funding formula fails to protect funding for looked-after children and will result in cuts in dozens of local authorities, according to Julie Cordiner, a specialist in school funding and education finance.
Previously, local authorities could allocate a portion of funding to schools based on the number of their pupils who live with foster parents, in a children’s home or with parents under a supervision order.
But from next year, all school funding for looked-after children will be provided directly from central government via the “pupil premium plus grant”.
But Ms Cordiner, a former member of the DfE’s School Funding Implementation Group, said next year’s per-pupil increase to the pupil premium plus grant is only worth £400, whereas local authorities gave an average of £500 per looked-after pupil last year - with some providing as much as £5,000 per pupil.
In a blog, she said that schools in local authorities that currently provide less than £400 per looked-after pupil will benefit from the change, but 79 local authorities will lose out.
She told Tes: “Essentially, the issue is it’s a hidden redistribution because taking the looked-after children factor out of the schools funding formula and putting it into a different pot means that the distribution of funds changes, and is spread across a lot more children.”
But Jane Pickthall, the chair of the National Association of Virtual School Heads, welcomed the decision to move the funding into the pupil premium plus “because the money comes to us and it’s much easier to account for so it feels like more accountability”.
But she added: “Obviously we don’t want there to be less money for looked-after children.”
In a statement, a DfE spokesperson said: “The new funding formula, backed by £1.3billion of extra funding, will ensure per-pupil funding is protected across the board - including for looked-after children.
“In fact, not only has the pupil premium plus rate gone up to £2,300, the local authority can no longer move this funding, meaning those children the funding is intended for will benefit.”
