Under the Education Act 2011, the Secretary of State has the power to issue directed revisions to local authority schemes for financing schools.
After consultation, which ended on 19 March 2012, the Department is directing local authorities with immediate effect to revise their Scheme for Financing Schools to include provisions about the Schools Financial Value Standard (SFVS) and to strengthen the wording on efficiency, value for money and fraud. The revisions also include changes to reflect legislation made by the Education Act 2011.
Following responses to this consultation, the Department will consider requests from local authorities if they wish to set an earlier deadline than the one set out in the direction (31 March) for schools to complete their SFVS returns, where there is a good reason for doing so. The Department will now also include the requirement for governors to monitor the progress of any actions in their SFVS.
This means that authorities must incorporate these changes in schemes with the specified wording and these changes come into immediate effect.
A copy of the directed revisions can be downloaded from this page.
