ACTION

Bryan Slater

Director of Education

Distribution

Headteachers of all schools with infant pupils

The attached document is provided for your information:

INFORMATION	Title	Allocation of infant class size grant
	Summary of contents	Process for allocating infant class size grant for the Summer term 2001 and the academic year 2001/02. This MI sheet is concerned with the allocation of revenue grant to support teachers. Any schools due to benefit from capital grant for new classrooms have been notified individually.
	Associated documents	MI Sheet 61/00
	Date	2 February, 2001
	Effective from	2 February, 2001
	LEA Contact	Kim Robertson	Tel:	01603 224272
	Document reference	MI 25/01

ALLOCATION OF INFANT CLASS SIZE GRANT FOR THE SUMMER TERM 2001

Management Information Sheet 94/00 showed how revenue grant for the period September 2000 – March 2001 was being distributed (in addition to this allocation of grant some schools with increasing pupil numbers have received grants from contingency funds). The reason why grant was originally allocated only up to March 2001 was to allow for the possibility that future funding would be incorporated within the resource allocation formula. This will not now happen - the reasons for this decision are given in the Fair Funding consultation document (MI 177/00).

Therefore all schools currently receiving infant class size grant will have this funding continued for the Summer term. The amount received will be pro-rata to the funding given for the Spring term, ie funding will be 5/3 of the amount allocated for the Spring term (or 5/7 of funding allocated for the combined Autumn and Spring terms). The DfEE have said that there will also be an uplift for inflation. They have not yet confirmed what this uplift will be, but it is likely to be based on the forthcoming teachers’ pay award.

ALLOCATION OF INFANT CLASS SIZE GRANT FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2001/02

Grant allocated from September 2001 will cover the full academic year, ie not just up to March 2002. However, grant will still be paid using financial years - so initial allocations from September will be up to the end of March. As in previous years allocations will be made through the Standards Fund process, but the LEA will automatically make journal entries to transfer the specific Standards Fund grant into school accounts as ‘other income’. This means that schools will not have to account separately for expenditure funded by class size grant. Schools receiving grant will have to ensure that infant classes are not above 30 pupils. Failure to do this would mean that schools would have to repay any grant given to them.

The allocation is particularly important this year because from September 2001 the requirement on schools to ensure that infant classes are not above 30 becomes a legal obligation. There are very limited exceptions allowed to this requirement. An explanation of the legal requirements will be included with the MI sheet to be issued in March inviting schools to request grant.

The timetable for allocating infant class size grant from September will be as follows:

28/2/00	Schools currently receiving grant will be notified whether this grant is likely to continue in the papers accompanying their resource allocation for 2001/02. This notification will be based on the pupil estimates for the 2001/02 academic year sent to the LEA with the Form 7 return. The notification could be: grant is likely to continue and schools should include the estimated value of the grant in their budget plans; grant is not likely to continue and no grant funding should be included in budget plans; grant may or may not continue and schools should draw up alternative budget plans including and excluding the estimated value of grant. Where possible a definite indication will be given. However, in cases where grant depends on the continuation or arrival of a very small number of pupils, it would be unreasonable to give this level of certainty. As pupil projections are subject to change it is possible that the eventual allocation of grant will differ from that indicated even where a definite yes or no is given as described above.
March 2000	Distribute MI Sheet including: pro-forma to be completed by all schools who may need grant (including those schools currently receiving grant and those schools who do not currently qualify, but who may be subject to a late influx of pupils); criteria for grant; expected funding levels; advice on legal requirements; advice on admission procedures.
31/3/00	Pupil admission lists close.
13/4/00	Pro-forma requesting grant to be returned to the LEA.
By 11/5/00	All schools with an initial entitlement to grant notified by telephone.
18/5/00	List of grants allocated to each school distributed to all schools with infant pupils via schools’ post.

The criteria for entitlement to grant from September will be similar to those used last year. These criteria were set out in MI Sheet 61/00. All schools that meet the criteria can expect to receive some grant. The exact level of grant given to a school will depend upon the school’s individual situation and the amount of funding given to the LEA by the DfEE.

The LEA is likely to retain some of the total grant available as a contingency fund. This would allow for the need for extra staff in schools who receive additional pupils after the initial allocation of grant. The amount of contingency funds retained and a list of schools who are most likely to require contingency would be published with the school by school list of initial entitlement to grant.