Commonwealth of Australia

Schools Assistance Act 2008

GUIDELINES FOR PROPOSALS BY SCHOOLS TO VARY A SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS (SES) SCORE 2009

I, JULIA GILLARD, Minister for Education, pursuant to subsection 76(2) of the Schools Assistance Act 2008 (‘the Act’) approve these guidelines for proposals by schools to vary the socio-economic status (SES) score for a school determined under subsection 72(2) of the Act.

Dated this     24th     day of   February                           2009

_________________________________________

JULIA GILLARD

Minister for Education

1 CITATION

These Guidelines may be cited as the Guidelines for Proposals to Vary a Socio-Economic Status (SES) Score 2009.

2 AUTHORITY

These Guidelines are approved under subsection 76(2) of the Schools Assistance Act 2008 for the purposes of subsection 76(1)(b) and section 79(b).

3 DATE OF EFFECT

These Guidelines take effect on the day after the day on which they are registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.

GUIDELINES FOR PROPOSALS BY SCHOOLS TO VARY A SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS (SES) SCORE 2009

Purpose

The socio-economic status (SES) score is intended to reflect the SES of a school’s community when calculated in accordance with the formula used to determine the SES score under section 72.  It is intended to represent the average SES profile of a community supporting a school and shows the relative capacity of a community to support its school.

Power under the Act

SES scores for a school are determined by the Minister under section 72(2) of the Schools Assistance Act 2008 (“the Act”). 

Subsection 76(1) of the Act provides that Subdivision D of Division 11 of Part 4 of the Act applies to a proposal to vary a school’s SES score in certain circumstances.  Paragraph 76(1)(b) provides that one of these circumstances is where the approved authority of the school considers that the SES score:

(b)…does not reflect the socioeconomic circumstances of the school’s community (in the way required by guidelines approved by the Minister under subsection (2)). 

Paragraph 79(b) of the Act provides authority for the Minister to approve a proposal under Subdivision D of Division 11 in certain circumstances. One such circumstance is where the Minister is satisfied that the school’s SES score:

(b)…does not reflect the socioeconomic circumstances of the school’s community (in the way required by guidelines approved by the Minister under section 76). 

Sub-section 76(2) of the Act authorises the Minister to approve guidelines for the purposes of subsection 76(1) and section 79.

How the SES score should reflect the socio-economic circumstances of a school

The SES score of a school is intended to reflect the relative SES of each non‑government school community compared with that of other non‑government school communities and therefore be a measure of the capacity of the non-government school community to provide financial support for the non-government school compared to the capacity of other non‑government school communities to provide financial support for their non-government schools.

There may be some circumstances, however, where the SES score does not reflect the SES of the non-government school community even when the SES score has been correctly determined in accordance with section 72.

An example of this could be where there is an identifiably unique social characteristic of families at the non-government school which is not reflected in the ABS Census data used to calculate the SES score for the non-government school and the characteristic affects the non-government school community’s capacity to provide financial support for the non‑government school.