We know that Upper House member Mark Latham has a view on “earned autonomy”, Federation doesn’t support it and the Auditor General made some strong comments about the LSLD initiative. We’ve been working with the DoE on their response to the Auditor-General’s report to the Minister & Cabinet.

The Auditor General made the following conclusions: 

The Department has not had adequate oversight of how schools are using needs-based equity funding to improve student outcomes since it was introduced in 2014. While it provides guidance and resources, it has not set measures or targets to describe the outcomes expected of this funding, or explicit requirements for schools to report outcomes from how these funds were used. Consequently, there is no effective mechanism to capture the impact of funding at a school, or state-wide level. The Department has recently developed a consistent set of school-level targets to be implemented from 2020. This may help it to better hold schools accountable for progress towards its strategic goal of reducing the impact of disadvantage.

A significant amount of extra funding has been provided to schools over recent years in recognition of the additional learning needs of certain groups of students facing disadvantage. Under the Local Schools, Local Decisions reform, schools were given the ability to make decisions about how best to use the equity funding in combination with their overall school resources to meet their students’ needs. However, multiple guidelines provided to schools contain inconsistent advice on how the community should be consulted, how funding could be used, and how impact should be reported. Because of this, it is not clear how schools have used equity funding for the benefit of identified groups. School annual reports we reviewed did not fully account for the equity funding received, nor adequately describe the impact of funding on student outcomes.

To help in the transition to greater local decision-making, the Department provided extra support by; establishing peer support for new principals, increasing the number of directors, developing data analysis and financial planning systems, targeted training and showcasing good practice. Multiple roles and areas of the Department provide advice to schools in similar areas and this support could be better co-ordinated.

Financial planning systems designed to help schools budget for equity and other funding sources were not fit-for-purpose when originally introduced. Schools reported a lack of trust in their budget figures and so were not fully spending their allocated funding. Since then, the Department developed and improved a budgeting tool in consultation with stakeholder and user groups. It provided extra funding for administrative support and 1:1 training to help schools develop their capabilities. Despite this, schools we spoke to reported they were not yet fully confident in using the system and needed ongoing training and support.

Then the following recommendations:

By April 2021, the Department of Education should:

1. Clarify the objective of equity funding and update guidance material and reporting requirements to consistently reflect this objective.
2. Better integrate equity funding into school planning and reporting by:
   a. supporting schools to set consistent measures and targets for improving educational outcomes for each equity group
   b. providing schools with a four-year projection of funding for each equity group based on past enrolment trends
   c. supporting schools to implement effective strategies for community engagement on the development of the school plan priorities
   d. requiring schools to identify how they plan to use available funding sources to meet the additional learning needs of identified equity groups and the outcomes expected
   e. requiring schools to report on how they have used funding to meet the additional learning needs of identified equity groups and the outcomes that have been achieved.
3. Measure and report on school and student outcomes achieved as a result of equity funding on an ongoing basis.
4. Identify schools that have made significant and sustained improvements for specific equity groups and share better practice approaches for using equity funding.
5. Identify schools that have not met expected growth for equity groups and provide tailored advice and support on effective approaches to lift performance.
6. Strengthen guidance on implementing cost-effective and educationally sound interventions that target the learning needs of equity students. For example, by expanding upon the Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation's 2015 'What works best' publication and incorporating additional evidence.
7. Better coordinate support provided to schools on community consultation, strategic planning, resource allocation and strategic financial management.
8. Improve training and support to lift the financial management capabilities of school principals, business managers, and Directors, Educational Leadership.