Cost of Schools

[Mumofttwins]

Can anyone point me in the right direction please.

I'm looking to find out the cost of our Local Authority Special School.

I'm struggling with this as well twins but have started with the LA's section 52 budget statement (?) - however I can't make head or tail of it so have written a FOI request to the school and will also do one to the LA.

Hopefully someone else with more knowledge will be along soon X

Ohh, I'd like to know this too if I can lurk!!

Lurk away

I came across it some years ago for the local authority, no idea where.

Figures were roughly as follows:
Mainstream primary school £3000 per year.
Special school for children with moderate learning disabilities £17000
Special school for children with profound and multiple learning disabilities £23000.

Thanks all for posting and lurking . It seems like a popular question!

Js, thanks for those figures. I'll try and do some more digging. So much for transparency

Search high needs funding on direct.gov.uk basically schools are funded per pupil (element 1) this can vary between LAs but around £4k, they have a notional sen budget of £6k for students with additional needs, (element 2), they have to show that they have used this money on support before they can access element 3 which is dependent on the individual needs to the student. Not an expert and this is a very basic desription

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cost_of_special_school_placement

FOI request should get you the info you need

I would ask the La in a formal request. There is freedom of information, but you would need to pay to get that information.

Vague memory of them saying £9K for all children, and extra £10K for SN and £10K (minimum) on top for SS. Very vague memory though!

My LA publish their SEN budget information online. 2015/16 stated each SS place is 10k plus a top up premium per pupil depending on the setting. The top up ranged from just over 1.5k for a pupil at a CLiP school to just over 12k if secondary boarding at a BESD.

If I could get an honest answer it would prove my school choice is cheaper than la school choice even with board and transport thrown in That's how it would help me zzz

I'm going to have another look tonight and see if I can work it out

Have a look here, search for your school:
www.eduexpress.co.uk.

Near the bottom of the page it'll show you some figures.

JsOtherHalf Wow - that website is excellent and full of information. Should be just what the OP is looking for.

But it only gives pupil spend/cost and not the actual cost of a school place or the amount a school would receive per pupil/place but it is a great link

It gives the average cost per pupil and the average adult to pupil ratio - I suspect somewhere in that gives information that would be useful to question the school with!

For example where DS school gives average cost per pupil as 6,400 odd and the actual income (can't remember) is 3000 per pupil lea funding and 300 self generated you can ask where the other 3100 comes from, is that including Sen funding and then ask specific questions such as where they have 11 pupils on Sen register what's the average spend per pupil on Sen register and average second per low achiever/disadvantaged pupil etc.

I'm sure there's maths in there that would work out to our advantage

Thanks all for the replies. And the links.

I'm not getting emails regarding this thread, so it looks like I'm ignoring everyone.

I'd like to use it to put my case to the LA - I feel they're hiding costs but need evidence.

It isn't simple. In our LA base funding for a MS place is c. £4k. So a MS SN place would be £10k including £6k top up funding.

In SS base funding is £10k, then children are stepped at one of 3 levels, which is decided by the LA in response to evidences compiled by the school for each child. A low step would only get +£1k, say, but a high step would give +£7k...or whatever. But then, the reason they are awarded the step is because of the cost of their provision.

E.g. A child with high medical needs who needs constant attendance, may get the highest step, but that money will be swallowed up (and more) by the cost of employing an extra TA for that class over and above its usual staffing compliment.

We never come out in profit on the funding!

Thanks lougle, that's broke it down for me.

If you're trying to argue for an independent school you can't really use cost of LA provision in any part of your argument (or at least this was historically the case) because placements in LA schools, once they've been allocated are regarded as 'zero cost'.

I am not sure if that is relevant in your case but in my experience you always need to show that the LA provision is inappropriate and your choice of provision is to win the case.