"New A rrangements for Learning Support: O pportunities and Challenges "

1. "New Arrangements for Learning Support: Opportunities and Challenges"

2. Funding Agencies Responsibilities For Learning Support • EFA • Shared responsibilities with Local Authorities • 19-24s with high cost ALS (with or without LDA) • Independent specialist providers • Skills Funding Agency • Adults 19 and over with low cost ALS • Workplace learners with ALS

3. 16-19 Arrangements for 2013/14

5. Main Changes to Funding Formula • Funding follows the learner – lagged numbers • Funding per learner not per qualification • National funding rate in cash terms, no SLNs • Retention not success factor • Disadvantage based on economic disadvantage and prior GCSE attainment • High needs learners can receive ‘top up’

6. 16-19 Curriculum Planning A L S

7. ALS Funding Changes • Low cost ALS based on previous GCSE English and maths results and historic costs for young people with low level needs related to learning difficulty or disability replaced by Prior Attainment • Disadvantage Funding merges low cost ALS with former disadvantage uplift • High needs learners receive ‘top up’ for support costs over £6000

8. Disadvantage Funding • Recognises that some students require additional support to participate and achieve if full participation and improved attainment are to be achieved Disadvantage Funding Block 1 Economic Deprivation Block 2 Prior Attainment

9. Disadvantage Funding • Economic deprivation based on IMD and post codes (block 1) • Additional categories removed • Low cost ALS based on prior attainment in GCSE English and maths (block 2) • No account taken of historic low cost spending • Principle is to create a single budget that institutions use as they see fit • Not ring fenced but impact on participation and retention should be measurable • Paid as a single budget on profile

10. Disadvantage Funding (Proposed Rates) • Economic deprivation can vary on a sliding scale from 8.4% to 33.6% • Prior attainment funding is flat rate per GCSE not attained at grade C • £450 for full-time • £274 for bands 2 and 3 • Pro-rata for band 1

11. Green Paper Support and Aspiration By 2014 • Single Assessment Process – “Education, Health and Care Plan” • More integrated local offer and involvement of voluntary sector • Options for personal budgets for all families with higher-level needs • Remove bias to inclusion in mainstream education • Remove perverse incentives to over identify children as having SEN • Wider choice for parents of educational institutions • New duties on FE colleges and academies to safeguard education of children and young adults with SEN • Better transition to adulthood • Align pre 16 and post 16 funding arrangements , but which way? See DfE response to the Green Paper

12. Timescales The Government intends to introduce legislation through a Children and Families Bill in this session of Parliament to implement the changes to the law required for the Green Paper reforms. Publish draft Bill Introduce Bill in Parliament Royal Assent and implementation Consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny period Summer 2012 Spring 2013 Spring 2014 onwards

13. SEN Pilot Projects • 20 local pathfinder schemes to test out proposals • Disabled children's education, health and care plan • Personal budgets for families of SEN/disabled children • £6 million per year to support a range of local organisations (including mental health) • Several concerns • Less inclusive approach and impact on existing support frameworks • Need longer to evaluate pathfinders

14. Implications of Government Response to the Green Paper • New requirement on local authorities and local health bodies to work together to promote integrated services (clause 5) and to plan and commission jointly services for disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs (clause 6) • Once named in an Education, Health and Care Plan, the school or college would be under a duty to admit the child or young person

15. Concerns about Value for Money • National Audit Office report on Special Education Needs for 16-25 year olds (£640m of support for 16-25) • House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, ‘Oversight of SEN for  16-25 year olds’ •  Both highlight problems of lack of consistency between different  systems in schools and colleges, transparency of spend on low cost ALS, and problems of measuring value for money from SEN provision

16. “Course outcomes for young people aged 16-25 receiving special educational support are improving. However,a lack of understanding of the relationship between needs, costs and outcomes can lead to students not getting the right support, and risks compromising value for money” ‘Oversight of special education for young people aged 16-25’, National Audit Office, Nov. 2011 16

17. School funding reform: next steps towards a fairer system “We will introduce a new methodology for funding high need pupils and students which will provide a consistent approach to funding across all types of providers, and ensure funding flows with the individual. This will ensure that high needs provision in the school, FE and Alternative Provision sectors will be funded on a broadly similar basis, and that local authorities have a single High Needs Block from which to commission all high needs provision for young people from birth to 25. “ March 2012.

18. Key areas for the reform • “We must remove potential perverse financial incentives to place pupils and students in one type of provider over another” • “We must address the awkward divide in funding arrangements when a young person reaches the age of 16” • “We must create a sustainable long-term basis for funding high needs pupils in Academies and Free Schools” • “We must avoid bureaucratic processes getting in the way of dialogue between the commissioner and provider about the pupil or student and their results “

19. High Needs Students - New Approach • funding is genuinely responsive to individual pupils’ and students’ needs in a way that balances greater responsiveness of providers’ funding to actual pupil or student numbers with an appropriate degree of funding stability for specialist providers; • all providers are funded on an equivalent basis so that the programme of education for a high needs pupil or student is funded in a comparable way whatever form of institution they attend so as to avoid potential perverse financial incentives; • education funding for pre-16 and post-16 high needs provision is brought together so as to support the development of the integrated approach to assessment and planning from birth to 25 proposed in the SEN and disability Green Paper, as well as ensuring that young people are able to make successful transitions at 16 and to adult life; and, • there is clear information about available provision for high needs pupils and students in the form of a local offer that will set out clearly what providers will be expected to provide for high needs pupils and students.

20. New methodology: “place-plus” • Element 1, or “core education funding”: the mainstream unit of per-pupil or per-student education funding. In the school sector for pre-16 pupils, this is the age-weighted pupil unit (AWPU), while for post-16 provision in schools and in the FE sector this is the mainstream per-student funding as calculated by the national 16-19 funding system. • Element 2, or “additional support funding”: a clearly identified budget for providers to provide additional support for high needs pupils or students with additional needs up to an agreed level, e.g. Up to £6000. • Element 3, or “top-up funding”: funding above elements 1 and 2 to meet the total cost of the education provision required by an individual high needs pupil or student, as based on the pupil’s or student’s assessed needs.

21. Funding flow: Placement in a FE college or ISP Element 1 Schools Block Schools Block Element 1 Early Years Block Early Years Block Element 2 Element 2 Element 3 High Needs Block Element 3 High Needs Block Place-led funding Pupil-led funding EFA EFA Commissioning local authority Commissioning local authority FE College ISP FE colleges and ISPs would receive an allocation of (a) mainstream per-student funding calculated by the national 16-19 funding formula and (b) an allocation of additional support funding of £6,000 per high needs student. These allocations would be based on the data from the last full academic year. This funding would be received by providers direct from the EFA. Top-up funding above this level would be provided from the commissioning local authority, using their High Needs Block.

22. Example H: Placement of a student in a mainstream FE college EFA Commissioning local authority Schools Block Element 1 Early Years Block Element 2 High Needs Block Element 3 FE College Student H is 17 years old and has high needs. Student H has been assessed as requiring education provision that will cost £18,000. The college would therefore be expected to contribute £10,000 towards student’s H provision. This is made up of (i) the cost of student H’s course (£4,000) and (ii) a contribution of £6,000 towards the cost of student H’s additional education support. The course that student H wishes to study costs £4,000. The college will be expected to meet the costs of this course from its allocation through the national 16-19 funding formula. The college receives this from the EFA. The commissioning local authority therefore pays a top-up of £8,000. It funds this from its notional High Needs Block. Top-up funding is paid direct to the provider in or close to the real-time movement of the student. The college has also received an allocation of additional support funding from the EFA. This is based on the numbers of high needs students attending the college in the last full academic year. From this allocation, the college is expected to contribute £6,000 towards student H’s educational support costs.

24. Outstanding Issues for ALS for 16-19(24) • Changes relate to classroom based provision for 16-19(24) year olds • What about 16-18 apprentices? • LA commissioners are worried that they do not have enough money in the ‘top-up’ allocations • Disadvantage funding is not ring fenced • How to ensure that all ALS needs are met?

25. Arrangements for Adults 2013/14

26. Changes in Funding • Single adult skills budget to all colleges and providers – ‘freedoms and flexibilities’ • Single funding formula and set of funding rules • All qualifications listed! • Narrower range of prices based on the size of qualification – rates matrix and programme weightings applied to QCF qualifications • Success factor replaced by learning aim achievement element (to include employment outcomes) • Disadvantage not merged with low cost ALS, and only based on post codes

27. Adult Skills Budget Innovation Code

28. Funding for ALS • Align the current ALS and ALN/ASN approaches • New single definition covering classroom and workplace • Incorporate former disadvantage uplift for personal characteristics • Single Learning Support funding subsumed into the ASB and paid on profile for all learners, classroom and workplace • Retain £19,000 ceiling, ‘top up’ from central funds • Learners funded by loans can get Learning Support from the Loans Bursary Fund

29. What the changes mean 1? • Learning Support may be used if learning continues past the planned end date and the learner still needs support • Learning Support must not be used to deal with everyday difficulties not directly associated with a learner’s learning on their programme

30. What the changes mean 2? • No restrictions on transferring funding between Learning Support and participation funding • If the SFA thinks that the funding it has provided is significantly more than the cost of the support provided, it may, after consulting the provider, reduce the amount of funding it pays the provider

31. Focus on Employability • ‘Fulfilling Potential’ cross departmental strategy for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities • Enable more employment opportunities through partnerships of FE and other agencies, including Community Learning Trusts • Further simplification of the funding for ALS and Learner Support • Jointly with EFA

32. Conclusions • Simpler but less fair funding formulae? • Freedoms and flexibilities but a lot less security for Learning Support? • Much more focus on outcomes and progression!