£1.8m more funding from Swindon Council made available to schools (From Swindon Advertiser)

£1.8m more funding made available to schools in Swindon

10:22am Tuesday 15th January 2013 in News

SWINDON Council will have £1.8m of unspent Government money, handed out for the running of Swindon schools in previous years, to distribute to schools over the next two years.

Figures to be presented to the council’s schools forum today show that, based on information at the end of November, an in-year underspend of about £1.5m is projected against the 2012/13 retained dedicated schools grant (DSG) budget.

A total of £333,000 also remains available from 2010/11 and 2011/12. The council is provisionally forecasting that a total of £1.833m – the sum of the two amounts – will be carried forward at the end of this financial year to 2013/14.

The council proposes that about 50 per cent of the available funding – £900,000 – should be distributed to schools in 2013/14 and the remainder will be redistributed in 2014/15.

A report to be presented to the meeting lists 15 main reasons for the £1.5m underspend, including underspends on early years nursery placements for three- and four-year-olds, the opening salary costs for the Croft School being lower than estimated and a projected underspend of £14,000 in the travellers’ children budget.