Proposed Government Plan 2022-2025 (P.90/2021): eighteenth amendment. (P.90/2021 Amd. (18)) – comments Special Educational Needs and School Funding Increase

STATES OF JERSEY

PROPOSED GOVERNMENT PLAN 2022 - 2025 (P.90/2021) :EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT (P.90/2021 AMD.(18)) – COMMENTS

SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND SCHOOL FUNDING INCREASE

Presented to the States on 13th December 2021 by the Council of Ministers

STATES GREFFE

2021  P.90 Amd.(18) Com.

COMMENTS

The Minister for Children and Education does not accept this amendment on the grounds that:

• there is insufficient evidence that the amount specified is correct

• the  proposers  have  not  clearly  identified  how  it  may  be  funded  without increasing  the  total  amount  of  government  spending  beyond  planned  and affordable levels.

The amendment as drafted proposes £10 million per annum to be applied to the implementation of the Inclusion Review and to cover any shortfall in funding identified within the new school funding formula for 2022.

It is too early to be able to identify any additional funding which may be required to implement the Inclusion Review, or to be clear on any shortfall identified through the work on the new school funding formulae for 2022.

These initiatives are both project workstreams under the Education Reform Programme; work  on  new  school  funding  formulae  is  underway  but  not  yet  completed.  The workstream on the Inclusion Review will commence following publication of this report, on Monday 13th December 2021. This will start with consideration of the 50 recommendations of the Inclusion Review and will include the development of a costed improvement plan to deliver those recommendations that are approved.

Inclusion was an area that the Independent School Funding Review of 2020 flagged as needing separate expert advice. Additional budgets were approved to address the most urgent gaps in the service to be allocated via the Education Reform Programme as shown in table 1 below:

Table 1

Table 1 shows that £2.68 million additional funding will be allocated to inclusion issues through the Education Reform Programme compared with 2020 – an increase of £1.79 million compared with 2021.

In addition, £5.5 million deficit funding from the Education Reform Programme has been allocated in 2021 to areas of pressure across Education, including overspends in the central inclusion support services as well as in direct school budgets.

An additional allocation of £678,000 is proposed in 2022 to offset growth in pupil numbers of which the special schools are the main beneficiary, and a further £2 million is proposed to fund growth in the numbers of children with identified Records of Need. This is proposed to be retained within the Annually Managed Expenditure Reserve, to be called down when required.

The work on the funding formula is progressing but is not yet complete. There will be several iterations as policy decisions in the other workstreams of the Education Review Programme are worked through.

If shortfalls are identified, these will be brought forward supported by evidence and policy through the government plan process for future years in the same way as investment has been progressed in previous years.

Table 2 shows the additional growth allocations in Education each year from 2016 to 2022

Table 3 – presents the growth allocations in Education from 2016 to 2022 cumulatively from a 2015 base.

*Record of Need funding is recurring in nature and will be put forward in subsequent government plan processes based on adjusted estimates at the date of submission

Financial Implications

The amendment as proposed increases Consolidated Fund Expenditure by £10 million in 2022. In total it increases expenditure by £40 million over the period of the Plan. If accepted this amendment will result in lower surpluses in 2023-2025 years of the plan, preventing them being available to be applied to reduce borrowing for Covid.

In respect of 2022 (subject to the outcome of other amendments) this amendment would result in a negative balance on the Consolidated Fund. This would mean the Government Plan could not be approved by the Assembly under Article 14 of the Public Finances Law, and the debate would need to be suspended to enable an amendment to be prepared in order to balance the Plan for 2022 before final approval.

Statement under Standing Order 37A [Presentation of comment relating to a proposition]:

These comments were submitted to the States Greffe after the noon deadline as set out in Standing Order 37A due to the requirement to undertake final due diligence and review processes.