Form

Institutions exceptional cases outcomes explanatory note

Updated 17 December 2014

This form was withdrawn on 14 December 2016

This page contains information about 2015 to 2016 academic year. Please visit 2016 to 2017 academic year or 2017 to 2018 academic year page for the latest information.

1. Introduction

This explanatory note is for special post-16 institutions (SPI’s) and non-maintained special schools (NMSS).

We have assessed and moderated all exceptional cases which were submitted to us by the 17 October 2014.

The purpose of this note is to explain to special SPI’s and NMSS how we have calculated any adjustments to your high needs place funding allocation for the academic year 2015 to 2016 as a result of the exceptional case process.

We have published a workbook on our website showing the agreed high needs place funding exceptions for the academic year 2015 to 2016. NMSS and SPIs should refer to the “NMSS and SPIs Exceptions” tab within that workbook for more information on their case. We will provide further specific feedback directly to each institution that made a case by 23 January 2015.

We will be contacting each institution who submitted a case with further specific feedback regarding their case by 23 January. Due to the high number of exceptional cases we received, it will not be possible to provide detailed and specific feedback on a case-by-case basis before then.

2. Key messages

We have delivered final high needs allocations in December this year to provide earlier certainty on budgets for local authorities and institutions in order to support the implementation of the Children and Families Act.

No institution will receive a reduction in place funding (unless otherwise agreed with a local authority as part of an infrastructure change).

There have been a large number of exceptional cases.

• generally, elements of a case which were based on actual occupancy in the academic year 2014 to 2015 have been supported
• generally, elements of a case which were based on predictions of occupancy levels in the academic year 2015 to 2016 have not been supported
• where we have supported a case, we have only funded the element of growth above the levels that we said we would be likely to consider as exceptional (as published in our Additional Information document) so as not to disadvantage institutions who have seen growth below these levels and therefore decided not to make a case

We have adopted the principle outlined above in bullet point 2, mindful that at this relatively early stage of the annual cycle of placement decisions, there is a risk that place funding will be committed to institutions where pupils or students ultimately may not attend. This means that there is less funding committed to places and more has been distributed as additional funding using population data, which local authorities can then use to provide additional funding for pupils and students in places that have not been funded, as they wish.

The actual number of places filled in the academic year 2015 to 2016, will be considered within the planning process for the academic year 2016 to 2017. This aligns with our current objective to fund place funding on a lagged basis.

We now consider the exceptional case process complete and we will not consider any new evidence presented by institutions at this stage.

Any queries or questions on the process should be raised by Friday 27 February.

For NMSS please send questions to the appropriate mailbox:

• HighNeeds.Central@education.gsi.gov.uk
• HighNeeds.Northern@education.gsi.gov.uk
• HighNeeds.Southern@education.gsi.gov.uk

For SPIs please send questions to the appropriate mailbox:

• YPNorthern.EFA@education.gsi.gov.uk
• YPCentralSW.EFA@education.gsi.gov.uk
• YPSouthern.EFA@education.gsi.gov.uk

Final allocations have now been made, and local authorities are free to provide additional funding for institutions that have all their funded places occupied, as they go on to commission extra places for pupils and students at those institutions in the coming months.

3. Principles of the exceptional cases process

The starting point for high needs funding allocations for the academic year 2015 to 2016 was to roll forward 2014 to 2015 place volumes. We made a commitment that no institution would see their allocation of places in the 2015 to 2016 academic year reduce from their allocation of places in the 2014 to 2015 academic year (unless otherwise agreed with a local authority as part of an infrastructure change). However, there would be a process to consider exceptional cases.

We published the principles for submitting exceptional cases for SPIs and NMSS in our Additional Information document in August 2014.

We explained within these documents, an exceptional case is not a request for additional top-up funding. It should only be necessary where there is a serious and detrimental shortfall in the current allocation of places relative to the actual level of occupancy in relevant institutions.

For SPI’s and NMSS we highlighted that:

• cases should only be submitted where the actual number of pupils or students occupying high needs places in 2014 to 2015 academic year in an institution is significantly higher than the 2015 to 2016 place numbers for the institution, and this is expected to continue and increase in the 2015 to 2016 academic year

We stated that all submissions must:

• confirm the number of high needs pupils or students actually present in the institution in the 2014 to 2015 academic year
• explain why rolling over the published 2014 to 2015 academic year place numbers does not allow appropriate provision to meet need in the 2015 to 2016 academic year; and
• confirm the total volume of additional high needs places requested and demonstrate engagement and confirmation from the relevant local authorities that they agree with the place numbers

In addition to this we confirmed what we would be likely to consider as an exceptional case.

4. Assessment of institution cases

Due to the high number of exceptional cases we received, it has not been possible to provide detailed and specific feedback on a case-by-case basis in December so we will provide further specific feedback to institutions by 23 January 2015. In these communications, we will confirm the outcome of the exceptional case assessment process, with the assessment principle applied to each institution case clearly identified.

In the meantime, the following paragraphs in this section state how we assessed cases and reviewed the evidence within them. These paragraphs can be read in conjunction with the high needs outcomes workbook to enable an institution to understand why we have supported or not supported a case.

We reviewed the evidence provided within each submission and considered it against our published requirements.

• generally, elements of a case which were based on actual occupancy in the academic year 2014 to 2015 have been supported
• generally, elements of a case which were based on predictions of occupancy levels in the academic year 2015 to 2016 have not been supported
• where an institution’s case for more places has been supported, we have agreed to fund the element of growth which is:
  • over and above 5 places for institutions with 50 places or less or
  • over and above 10% for institutions with more than 50 places

We have only funded growth above the levels that we said we would be likely to consider as exceptional so as not to disadvantage those institutions that did not make a case.

5. Next steps

By the 23 January we will communicate tailored feedback to institutions regarding the outcomes of their exceptional case submissions

During January to March, we will cross check data in exceptional case submissions with individual learner record and schools census data for consistency checks. We will review any inconsistent cases and may make deductions from the high needs block.

All queries or questions on the exceptional cases process should be sent to us by Friday 27 February

By the end of February, we will update our website and the information in our additional information document for the academic year 2015 to 2016. We are currently working with the High Needs External Group (HEG) to look at how we better present information on high needs to improve our customer service.

We will also issue academic year 2015 to 2016 funding allocations to post-16 institutions, academies and NMSS by the end of February where possible, which will include a restatement of final high needs place numbers as agreed as part of the high needs exceptional case process 2015 to 2016.