Out of catchment - child budget allocation

Summary

The requester asked how per-child budget allocations are handled when students are approved for out-of-catchment school transfers late in the year. The Department of Education clarified that no specific financial figure is allocated to each child, meaning no surrender or reallocation of funds occurs between schools during the year.

Key Facts

• School budgets are reviewed annually based on multiple elements including pupil roll numbers, staffing levels, and special needs requirements.
• Budget calculations use pupil roll numbers from the previous September.
• A specific financial figure is not allocated to each individual child.
• There is no surrender or reallocation of financial figures between schools when out-of-catchment requests are approved during the school year.
• The request was received on 24 September 2018 and responded to on 18 October 2018.

Data Disclosed

• 24 September 2018
• 18 October 2018
• 607970
• previous September's roll numbers

Original Request

I believe that each child is allocated a certain 'financial' figure when calculation for each school budget. Recently made public was that there have been more 'out of catchment' requests approved this year, than in previous years. Given that budgets are set early, yet some of these requests are not approved until after the appeal process which is very late in the year, please can you advise how this per child budget is treated/reallocated? Do schools that originally have the child allocated then surrender this figure and it is reallocated to the new school?

Data Tables (1)

Full Response Text

Corporate Services Division Department of Education, Sport and Culture Hamilton House Peel Road, Douglas IM1 5EZ Telephone: (01624) 685808 Website: www.gov.im/dec Email: dec@foi.gov.im Our ref: 607970 18th October 2018

Dear ###

We write further to your request which was received on 24 September 2018 and which states:

"I believe that each child is allocated a certain 'financial' figure when calculation for each school budget. Recently made public was that there have been more 'out of catchment' requests approved this year, than in previous years. Given that budgets are set early, yet some of these requests are not approved until after the appeal process which is very late in the year, please can you advise how this per child budget is treated/reallocated? Do schools that originally have the child allocated then surrender this figure and it is reallocated to the new school?"

Our response to your request is as follows: School budgets are reviewed on an annual basis and take in to account a number of elements including:- • the number of pupils on roll for schools (based on the previous September’s roll numbers) • teacher staffing levels • pupil special educational needs requirements • the number of classrooms. Whilst the numbers of children within schools are taken into consideration when calculating the budgets for each school, a financial figure is not allocated to each child. Therefore there is no surrender and reallocation of such financial figures between school budgets during the school year in which an out of catchment request has been approved. Please quote the reference number 607970 in any future communications.

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I will now close your request as of this date.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Coordinator