Schools Contingency Fund - Claim Critieria

 

 

 

Schools are funded on the basis of pupil numbers as at the January prior to the start of the financial year in April. In cases where schools experience a significant rise in pupil numbers at the beginning of the following academic year (September), they may apply for additional funding to cover the remainder of the financial year (September to March), where it can be demonstrated that necessary additional staffing costs have been incurred, and that insufficient reserves and balances are available to cover those costs. Marginal non-staffing costs will be expected to be met by the schools themselves. Each case will be considered on an individual need to spend basis.

 

Additional resources will be allocated to special schools where, within a term, the number of pupils in a special school exceeds the number of planned places at the school by more than 5%. (Changes in the maximum number of places for which the school makes provision require approval by the Secretary of State.)

To assist schools in the process of amalgamation, school budgets will be determined during the year of amalgamation as if they had remained separate schools. In the year following amalgamation the amalgamated school will receive, in addition to its formula-derived budget, half of any delegated budget savings resulting from the amalgamation. In the case of two schools amalgamating into one building, the premises related savings will be earmarked for building adaptations and/or remodelling. In the following year the new school would receive only its formula-derived budget.

 

Where additional premises costs, falling on a school’s delegated budget, arise because all or part of a school is closed with the agreement of the local authority, then the school may make a claim on the contingency fund.

Schools needing to make workplace adjustments in response to staff disabilities may apply to Sheffield City Council's CYPD Equalities Steering Group for funding assistance. Please e-mail Bashir Khan at bashir.khan@sheffield.gov.uk  Successful applications for funding will be administered through the schools' Contingency Fund.

 

 

 

Schools with severe long-term financial difficulties may apply to have part of historically-accumulated deficits written off. Any such agreements will be funded by top-slicing the delegated Individual Schools’ Budget (ISB), and will be first notified to Sheffield’s Schools Forum. The criteria for granting support for primary schools in financial difficulty were agreed by Sheffield’s Schools Forum in December 2003, and reviewed in January 2006 and February 2007.

 

Infant and Nursery Infant Schools may apply for funding towards the cost of an additional teacher, where such a post is made necessary by the requirements of maximum class size regulations applying to Reception and Key Stage One. Other types of school (e.g. Infant Junior) are not able to apply - Infant Class Size funding is intended to be available, where required, to compensate those schools without Key Stage Two pupils, following the re-distribution of previously Key-Stage-One-specific Infant Class Size Grant across all primary sectors through the introduction of Awkward Year Group Size funding.

 

In order to qualify for assistance schools must be able to demonstrate that the required additional teaching post could not otherwise be afforded within a balanced budget. Priority will be given to smaller schools (two forms of entry or smaller).

 

 

 

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