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2. Delegation Process

II   Main Findings

2.    Delegation processes

2.1 While secondary schools automatically received delegated funding under the second
phase of the Fair Funding initiative, not all LEAs made the decision to delegate the
funding to all primary and special schools. However, in LEAs that did not delegate
universally, primary and special schools could opt to receive meal funding if they
believed this would be advantageous. This section looks at how LEAs came to their
delegation decisions, what consultation was undertaken with schools and how the
delegation formulae were derived. Finally, it considers specific issues concerning the
delegation of funds for free school meals.

The decision to delegate.

2.2 The study asked LEAs what influenced the decision to delegate universally or only by
request to primary and special schools. Most LEAs that delegated universally
responded that this had been solely to achieve the Fair Funding targets. One described
delegation as
‘a foregone conclusion’, with no choice but to delegate if the LA was to meet
Government delegation targets. However, one London LEA that had previously
negotiated a PFI (Private Finance and Investment) contract with an outside caterer to
address lack of investment in school kitchens since the demise of ILEA, had delegated
budgets at the time, in consultation with schools, offering them the choice of joining in
the LEA’s PFI or making alternative arrangements.

2.3 In the four LEAs that had not delegated across the board, several reasons were put
forward for retaining these budgets. Two LEAs had wanted to delegate to all schools
but, after consultation with head teachers, decided against. Another LEA reported that
the complexity of the current contract would have made delegation to all schools very
difficult, although they had managed to extract the individual budgets of secondary
schools. Other ways had been found to meet the delegation targets, principally by
successfully delegating the SEN budget. Another LEA reported that although they
could have delegated the primary school meals budgets, this would have failed to meet
what the officer believed to be the target for 90% delegation3, so there was little point in
undertaking the exercise. This officer described a situation that was probably not
untypical of other LEAs.

And there were issues that it would have been a delegation that really wouldn’t have meant
anything, because at the time the primaries were still tied into the contract that they had agreed
to go with and if we delegated the money we would have had to have them all buy back in
again anyway. So we thought we would only be delegating it on paper, it would create extra
work and we wouldn’t reach the target anyway, so it probably wasn’t worth it.

2.4 Three LEAs had delayed delegation to primary schools until 2002. For one, the feeling
was that this was almost a delegation too far. Previous delegations of other budgets had
been undertaken with more enthusiasm and were believed to have had positive benefits
for both the LEA and the schools. However the delegation of the meals budget had
been different.

Because we had been fairly proactive and a lot had gone out, we had got down to the most
complicated part, and which had always been seen as the most complicated to put out. So in

3 Although a 90% target had been proposed in 2000 by DfES for 2003, this was never implemented.

11



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