DESC Social Equity Funding Business Case (Pupil Premium)

Summary

The request sought the Treasury's response to a 2019 business case for Social Equity Funding (Pupil Premium) and related internal documents, including correspondence and pandemic-related costs. The Treasury disclosed the original business case and a 2020 paper regarding the Free School Meals Voucher Scheme, but withheld some information citing partial exemptions.

Key Facts

• The Department of Education, Sport and Culture (DESC) submitted a business case in August 2019 requesting £2,657,000 per annum for social equity funding.
• The Treasury suggested a conditional resource allocation where schools must bid for funds rather than direct ring-fencing.
• A separate Treasury Paper (20/389) requested £140,000 from the Covid-19 contingency fund to extend free school meals during the 2020 summer holidays.
• The response noted that 24.1% fewer primary school pupils receiving Free School Meals achieve the key benchmark of 5 Level 2 passes.
• The outcome was classified as 'Some information sent but part exempt'.

Data Disclosed

• £2,657,000
• £30,000
• 24.1%
• £140,000
• £500,000
• 2021-07-30
• 2021-08-25
• 08 July 2020
• August 2019
• 2020/21
• Treasury Paper No. 20/389

Original Request

As revealed by the DESC's response to FOI Request 1165549 submitted 2nd March 2020 and published on the FOI Disclosure Log, that Department submitted (August 2019) a business case for Social Equity Funding in Schools. I seek the following information in respect of this submission and other subsequently generated information concerned with social equity funding for schools: The Treasury's response to the DESC Business Case including any amplifying information (if any) sought from that Department; All internal (Treasury) information relating to this business case including but not limited to internal e-mails, extracts from minutes of meetings where this topic was discussed, internal memoranda etc; Exchanges of correspondence with the DESC on this issue; If held such information relating to any later discussions and costs of social equity funding for Island schools including any such financing requested/necessitated by the Covid pandemic.

Data Tables (5)

Full Response Text

APPENDIX A 10 REVENUE BUSINESS CASE – 2020/21 BUDGET ROUND Business Case – Social Equity Funding DEPARTMENT: DESC Dept. Priority 2 /3 £ requested £2,657,000 pa (min 3-5 years) plus £30,000 2021-21 Overview PfG – inclusive and caring /island of opportunity Address social disadvantage of pupils (‘looked after’/free school meals) social deprivation is connected to low attainment. Other Jurisdictions provide for additional funding for ‘ disadvantaged’ children Currently department funds five family support workers and have Early help and support (seeks to build a team round the family) 24.1% fewer primary school pupils in receipt of FSM achieve the key bench mark of 5 Level 2 passes including English and Maths Suggested that there is a conditional resource allocation for which schools must bid Savings & Opportunities Identified Improve future skills of Isle of /Man work force Improve future social cohesion Risks and Issues If the additional funding is not correctly targeted it may make no difference – disconnect between the challenges faces by pupils and the way the funding used Danger that schools may use to fund other areas Monitoring essential to evaluate impact – currently no requirement to account for performance of disadvantaged pupils Reputational damage? Work in this area in other jurisdictions is increasingly publicised. Officer comments: Pilot & see how much is spent initially? Via fund or ringfenced?
What is the objective – improve outcome by how much? Some evidence advises that it may not have desired impact (this is noted in the business case itself) Tackling causes of educational disadvantage rather than symptoms eg. socio-economic status of family Learn from the other jurisdictions to ensure we target aspects of practice that have proven most successful. Best option is a conditional resource allocation for which schools must bid Do we need to fund at the same level as other jurisdictions? Treasury Decision: Approve/Decline
Date APPENDIX Bi 10 CoMin Decision: Approve/Decline
Date APPENDIX Bii APPENDIX C Page 1 of 5 Treasury Paper No. 20/389 Treasury Paper Department/Board/Office Department of Education, Sport and Culture Chief Officer Ronald Barr Responsible Officer Cut ups to be sent to Ronald Barr / Date of Treasury Meeting 08 July 2020 Title Free School Meals Voucher Scheme Has appropriate internal and/or public consultation taken place? Internal Are there any resource/personnel implications? Yes Do you have the statutory vires? (If yes, provide confirmation of the source within ‘Background’) No Are there any inter-Departmental implications? No If yes, which other Departments are involved? Major Policy Proposal/Primary Legislation? No Have you completed an impact assessment? If yes, please append a copy to this paper Not Applicable If Primary Legislation, has Council Legislation Subcommittee approved the inclusion of the proposed Bill on the legislative programme Not Applicable Decision date of the Council Legislation Subcommittee Does the recommendation have Political approval within the Department/Board/Office? Yes Date approval granted Are there any Financial Implications? Yes GDPR Implications Data Protection Impact Assessment undertaken? Yes Detailed evaluation undertaken? Choose an item. Are there any Equality Act Implications? Append a copy of the impact assessment No Fund Claim Application? Note that any claims in excess of £500,000 must be accompanied by a CoMin paper and that Treasury will submit the CoMin paper on behalf of the relevant body. Approval will not be confirmed until after CoMin’s decision. Yes Purpose of the Paper: Application from Department of Education, Sport and Leisure for up to £140,000 from the Covid-19 contingency fund to support the continuation of the Free School Meals Voucher Scheme throughout the Summer School Holidays. APPENDIX D Page 2 of 5 1) Background Approval Sought Due to the recent announcements of COVID Summer Food Fund from Governments in Wales, Scotland, England and NI there has been calls for the Island to continue funding free school meals throughout the 2020 summer break.
In order to enable this additional funding of £140,000 would be required. If more parents require benefits due to adverse economic outturns within this period this would necessitate an increase to this estimate.
Wales, Scotland, England and NI have all approved the continuation of their Free School Meal Schemes throughout the summer break to support vulnerable families during the COVID19 ‘back to normal’ transition period as follows (note term dates may vary):  Welsh Government – if children are not vulnerable or key worker government advises that they should not attend school and local authorities have been asked to set up a suitable government funded scheme to provide free meals for eligible children to cover the summer break being 20 July to 4 September.  Scottish Government - if children are not vulnerable or key worker government advises that they should not attend school and local councils have been asked to set up a suitable government funded scheme to provide free meals for eligible children to cover the summer break being 24 June to 12 August.  English Government - if children are not vulnerable or key worker government advises only certain year groups should attend school (1,6,10,12) and local authorities have been asked to set up a suitable government funded scheme to provide free meals for eligible children to cover the summer break being 22 July to 1 September.  Northern Ireland - if children are not vulnerable or key worker government advises that they should not attend school and local authorities are making payments to families who would ordinarily receive free school meals to cover the summer break being 1 July to 24 August. Although the Island’s Social Distancing policy was lifted on the 11 June 2020, which has triggered a return to school, the DESC is continuing the FSM Voucher Scheme until the end of the summer term. This means that eligible pupils will be receiving free school meals within schools from 22 June, when the majority of pupils return, whilst still receiving the scheme vouchers by post. Primary Schools have reported a 93% return of pupils to school whilst Secondary Schools have reported a 88% return. Previous Approval The Department OF Education, Sport and Culture has a statutory obligation to provide Free School Meals (FSM) to the children of parents who qualify under the benefits scheme. There are currently 2,040 children eligible for FSM. During the COVID19 lockdown, the DESC initially decided that FSM should be provided through the secondary schools as this enabled a restriction on the number of schools open for collection of meals and provided ample parking for this to happen. Due to various issues such as travel restrictions the uptake of the FSM was very low. Therefore, in order to ensure that all children entitled to a FSM received them the Department considered other options for either delivering meals or providing the monies for the families to buy food to provide the meals for their children.
Page 4 of 5

• As the majority of the Island has returned to ‘business as usual’ there may be an expectation that this scheme will be offered every summer break • Other local stores may wish to become involved in the scheme which will be difficult to initiate in the timeframe and to administrate
• No guarantee that children will get a meal, voucher could be used for other products, to mitigate this, each voucher is clearly marked ‘groceries only’ and that alcohol, lottery, tobacco and non-food products are excluded. • Increased administration to send out vouchers, although this could be reduced to one mail shot at the beginning of the summer break • Risk of abuse • Risk of a significant increase in applications for FSM

4) Impact Assessment i) Business/Third Sector Continuing to work with Shoprite without entering a procurement process could result in criticism. A rollout to a number of retailers in one go, could cause significant issues, there will be different systems and different processes for each business. As this is a temporary measure it is important to keep the process simple and ensure the most efficient use of administration time to keep costs to a minimum. An exemption from the procurement regulations was obtained prior to the commencement of the scheme, it is likely this would require an extension should the proposal be approved. ii) Government Increased cost, which cannot be contained within the DESC 2020-21 budget. DEFA have supported the DESC in investigating these options. iii) Social Ensures that families, in receipt of benefits have the means to provide a meal for their children during the summer 2020 school holiday period. iv) Environmental Reduction in the number of people travelling as it is envisaged that the voucher will be redeemed during family’s weekly/fortnightly shop. v) GDPR No personal details will be provided to third parties. The existing database will be used by DESC to post vouchers to parents.

5) Consultation/Stakeholder Engagement Discussions have taken place within CoMin.

Page 5 of 5

6) Financial Implications The cost of introducing this scheme for the 6 weeks 27th July 2020 to 6th September 2020 would be £140,000, if the balance of the original approval was utilised, an approval of additional contingency funding of £46,400 would be required. Total cost of the voucher scheme from lockdown to the end of the summer holidays would be £266,720. The £140,000 cost assumes that we would continue to limit the scheme to all pupils except years 11 and 13. If they were included the cost would rise to £153,000.

7) Audit and Control The vouchers are printed on watermarked paper and are sequentially numbered. DESC record the allocation of vouchers to parents and redeemed vouchers are returned for audit purposes. 8) Recommendation Treasury are asked to approve
• the extended voucher scheme 2020, operating with Shoprite at an additional cost of up to £140,000 to cover a six week period, 28th July to 5th September 2020. • Approve an additional £46,400 contingency funding to support this measure. This would result in a total call on the contingency fund of £266,720 for the voucher scheme.

Freedom of Information Seyrsnys Fysseree

The Treasury Government Office, Douglas Isle of Man, IM1 3PU

Telephone: (01624) 685605 Email: FOI.Treasury@gov.im

Government Website: www.gov.im

Our ref: 1930857 25 August 2021

Dear ###

Freedom of Information Act 2015 (the “Act”) Thank you for your request made under the Act on 30 July 2021. Subject to the clarification you provided on 5 August 2021, your request asks as follows – 1. As revealed by the DESC's response to FOI Request 1165549 submitted 2nd March 2020 and published on the FOI Disclosure Log, that Department submitted (August 2019) a business case for Social Equity Funding in Schools. I seek the following information in respect of this submission and other subsequently generated information concerned with social equity funding for schools: (a)The Treasury's response to the DESC Business Case including any amplifying information (if any) sought from that Department; (b)All internal (Treasury) information relating to this business case including but not limited to internal e-mails, extracts from minutes of meetings where this topic was discussed, internal memoranda etc; (c)Exchanges of correspondence with the DESC on this issue. 2. Any formal submissions made by the DESC to Treasury's Financial Governance Division and the associated response, where the funding sought was concerned with - • the furtherance of the original Business Case for budgetary funding • pupil premium • funding for free school meals outside of term times • funding additional computer hardware (e.g. tablets) to facilitate home based learning for students in low income families

Part 1(a) In respect of part 1(a) of your request, please find attached at appendix A, a copy of the correspondence we hold between the Treasury and the Department of Education, Sport and Culture (DESC), which shows the Treasury’s response to the business case.
You will note that some information has been redacted from this appendix. The information that has been redacted is exempt from disclosure under section 25 of the Act (absolutely exempt personal information). The reasons why that exemption applies are that - • The Treasury is satisfied that the information amounts to personal data of which you are not the data subject; and • The Treasury is satisfied that disclosure of the information would contravene one of the data protection principles as set out at Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation as it applies in the Isle of Man pursuant to the Data Protection (Application of GDPR) Order 2018, namely that the Treasury can only disclose the information where it would be fair, lawful and meet one of the conditions for lawful processing in Article 6 and in this case, none of those conditions have been met. In relation to your request for copies of any amplifying information that the Treasury may have been sought from the DESC, we do not hold such information. As such, a practical refusal reason under section 11(3)(a) of the Act applies to this part of your request as the Treasury does not hold or cannot, after taking reasonable steps to do so, find the information that you have requested. Part 1(b) In respect of part 1(b) of your request, please find attached at appendix B copies of (i) the Assessment paper prepared by Treasury officers in relation to the business case and (ii) an extract of relevant information from the agenda for the political level meeting budget meeting between the Treasury and DESC, at which this business case was considered.
Part 1(c) In respect of part 1(c) of your request, all of correspondence we hold between Treasury and the DESC in connection with the business case has been disclosed to you under part 1(a) of your request. Part 2 Moving to part 2 of your request. At appendix C, I attached a copy of the DESC’s application to the Covid-19 contingency fund dated April 2020 entitled “Application to support the introduction of a Free School Meals Voucher Scheme”. This paper was considered as part of the covid-19 contingency fund bid process.
You will note that some information has been redacted from appendix A. The information that has been redacted is exempt from disclosure under section 25 of the Act (absolutely exempt personal information). The reasons why that exemption applies are that -

• The Treasury is satisfied that the information amounts to personal data of which y

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