The Cornwall Schools Forum was scheduled to meet on Friday 13 June 2025 to discuss a school finance update and receive verbal updates on the work plan, induction programme, and register of interests. The meeting was also scheduled to include discussion of any other urgent business.

School Finance Update

The forum was scheduled to receive an update on school finances, covering the January 2025 schools funding formula submission and final Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) budgets for the 2025/26 financial year. The report pack included details of funding and formula-related developments.

Each year, Cornwall Council is required to submit a schools funding formula to the Department for Education (DfE), detailing budget allocations for the upcoming financial and academic years for maintained and academy schools respectively. The formula and central school budgets must be agreed upon with the schools forum.

Key Discussion Points:

• National Funding Formula (NFF): Funding is allocated via the DfE's NFF, which specifies the permitted formula factors and prescribed rates. These are primarily applied on a per-pupil basis, although school-level allocations such as the lump sum, rent, and sparsity factors are also included. Consequently, the local authority and schools forum have limited flexibility to tailor the funding methodology or prioritise allocations.
• Budget Setting Process: The 2025/26 budget process was delayed due to a change in national government, with final allocations and guidance unavailable at the time of the October and December forum meetings.
• Minimum Funding Guarantee (MFG): The MFG, which protects the year-on-year change in schools per pupil funding, was set at the maximum allowable of 0%. This meant no school saw a reduction in their baseline funding per pupil compared to 2024/25.
• Gains Ceiling: The gains ceiling was set at 1.48%. This sets the maximum increase schools can see in their per pupil baseline and is used to ensure the overall cost of schools budgets is within the available grant allocation.
• Block Transfers: 0.5% of the schools block funding was transferred to the high needs and central schools services blocks.
• Pupil Growth & Falling Rolls: The provisional growth and falling rolls allocation for 2025/26 is £1.441m. After allowing for commitments for the remainder of the 2024/25 academic year the available budget for basic need, exceptional year on year growth and falling rolls is £0.322m.
• High Needs Budget: Cornwall has set a high needs budget of £100.431m for 2025/26. The majority of this is used to fund demand led placement and top up costs. The balance funds central SEN services and the high needs protection fund.
• Central Schools Services Block (CSSB): Each year, the schools forum delegates authority to the Service Director to finalise the CSSB budget, as budget-setting is ongoing at the time of the December meeting. The final 2025/26 budget is presented here, along with the 2024/25 outturn.
• De-delegated Budgets: De-delegation allows maintained schools to pool funds for exceptional costs and local authority services. Most budgets are voted on by education phase, except the redundancy fund, which requires universal agreement. The 2025/26 budgets were approved in the December 2024 schools forum meeting.
• Early Years: Funding received via the DSG for early years is allocated based on census counts either end of the financial year. This means the allocations for both 2024/25 and 2025/26 are estimates as of May 2025.

The report also noted that the local authority has committed to setting up a working group to review options for implementing a revised capping and scaling process for 2026/27.

Other Business

The agenda also included the following items:

• Progress Against the Work Plan: A verbal update on the progress against the work plan.
• Induction Programme: A verbal update on the induction programme.
• Register of Interests: A verbal update on the register of interests.
• Any Other Business: Any other business that the Chairman considers to be of urgency.