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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Kennet Room - County Hall, Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, BA14 8JN. View directions

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies and Changes of Membership

To note any apologies and changes to the membership of the Forum.

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Amanda Burnside (Linda Westmore from Wiltshire College attended in her place), George Croxford, Sue Jiggens and Nigel Roper.  It was noted that Judith Finney was not present and it was believed that she was no longer part of the Salisbury Diocesan Board of Education and that the Clerk be requested to write to the Board to ask who their new representative would be.

2.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

To approve as a correct record and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 7 December 2017 (copy attached).

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 7 December 2017 were discussed.  Following a proposal, the meeting:

 

Resolved

 

To approve as a correct record and the Chairman sign the minutes of the meeting held on 7 December 2017 subject to the following amendment:

 

That Minute 62 should be amended to note that an “s” should be added to Aileen Bate as the “s” was missing from the minutes.

3.

Chairman's Announcements

To receive any announcements from the Chair.

 

Minutes:

Format of meeting

 

The Chairman suggested that as a number of decisions/recommendations needed to be made in relation to funding/budgets that all of the reports/information be heard first and then the decisions could be made following that to allow for any agreed movement between funding blocks.

 

Incomplete sentence within Agenda supplement

 

The Chairman highlighted an incomplete sentence on the report on Agenda item 7 which was in the Agenda supplement.  On page 3 of the supplement, at paragraph two, the following words should be inserted “paid directly by the ESFA and for the January 2017 early years census”.

 

Agenda item 5

 

There would be no update on the Children and Young People’s Trust Board as the Board had not met since the last meeting of the Forum.

 

 

 

 

4.

Declaration of Interests

To note any declarations of interests.

Minutes:

There were no declarations made.

5.

Children and Young People's Trust Board Update

To receive a verbal update from Susan Tanner (Head of Commissioning and Joint Planning), on the Children and Young People’s Trust Board. 

Minutes:

The Chairman informed that there would be no update on the Children and Young People’s Trust Board, as the Board had not met since the last meeting of the Forum in December 2017.

6.

Reports from Working Groups

To receive minutes, reports and/or verbal updates from the following working groups:

 

 

a)         Early Years Reference Group Meeting – 5 January 2018

b)         Joint Meeting of Schools Funding Working Group and SEN Working Group 8th January 2018.

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

The meeting received updates from the following working groups:

 

a)    Early Years Reference Group

 

It was noted that the working group had considered the report on the Early Years Block for 2018/19 and recommended that the hourly rate of £4.16 for the 3 & 4-year-old entitlement be implemented.

 

Resolved:

 

That Schools Forum note the minutes of the Early Years Reference Group meeting held on 5 January 2018.

 

b)    School Funding Working Group & SEN Working Group

 

It was noted that the working group discussed the methodology for high needs recoupment now that place funding for resourced provision would be funded at £6,000 rather than £10,000 and how empty places would be dealt with.  There was discord as academies would receive £10,000 from April to August 2018 and maintained schools £6,000 from April as they have different financial year periods.  It was highlighted that this was not a Wiltshire Council decision to reduce the funding – it was a new DfE regulation.

 

The issue was due to be discussed further at the next working group meeting on 7 March 2018 and the meeting was happy to defer this until that meeting for a proposal to be brought to the March Schools Forum meeting.

 

Resolved:

 

That Schools Forum note the minutes of the joint meeting of the School Funding Working Group and SEN Working Group held on 8 January 2018.

7.

Budget Monitoring 2017/18

The copy of the budget monitoring information against the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) for the financial year 2017-18 will be to follow.

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

The Forum considered the report which provided budget monitoring information against the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) for the financial year 2017-18 as at 31 December 2017.

 

Liz Williams highlighted the following:

 

·       An overspend of £0.321m was currently projected against the overall schools budget.  This was an adverse movement of £0.441m compared to the figures reported at the December Forum meeting;

 

·       A projected underspend in the early years budget was reported previously based on the take up to date of the entitlement for 2 year olds.  The DSG allocation for early years would be updated following the January 2018 census and it is likely that the allocation will be reduced if take up is not as estimated in the initial settlement.  The projection had been revised to remove the potential underspend;

 

·       High needs budgets were projected to overspend by £1.488m (an increase of £0.335m since the previous report to the Forum; and

 

·       The reserve at the end of 2016/17 was reported as £0.583m, however then the 2016/17 DSG allocation was reduced after the end of the financial year to reflect the January 2017 census.  The available reserve was therefore currently £0.341m.

 

Resolved:

 

That Schools Forum note the budget monitoring position at the end of December 2017 and that the decisions to be taken later in the meeting may have a potential impact on the reserve.

8.

Update on Developments funded from Schools Block Transfer to High Needs 2017-18

The report of Susan Tanner (Head of Commissioning and Joint Planning) provides an update to the forum of the spending on the agreed allocations

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

Susan Tanner (Head of Commissioning and Joint Planning) referred to the report which gave an update on the spending of the agreed allocations of funding to the SEN Supporting Schools Strategy 2015-18. Susan highlighted the following:

 

·       £600k was allocated to develop SEMH Centres of Excellence.  The first centre named the Harbour project opened at Castle Mead School in Trowbridge and in this first year the project is funded via the £240K of the Schools Forum budget allocation.  Work has also been undertaken to consider taking forward equivalent provision in the north and south of the county, although no agreement has been reached on this yet;

 

·       The funding for transition into primary school/secondary school (TIPS or TISS) of £130k had been well received and had prevented several placement breakdowns and supported positive transition for 140 children/young people.  The funding would be pretty much fully utilised by the end of the financial year;

 

·       The £20k funding for children/young people with hearing impairments had been fully utilised, enabling them to stay in mainstream school settings;

 

·       £10k was added to funding already allocated to three secondary federations to support one off developments in alternative provision;

 

·       The decision for Schools Forum was whether they wished to roll forward the funding allocation for the SEMH Centres of Excellence of £360k into 2018/19 to support the development of centres in the north and south.

 

The Forum discussed the SEMH Centres of Excellence and Susan Tanner clarified that locations in the north and south of the county had been identified from those schools that had space/an interest in developing the work they currently undertook and the capacity to support such a centre.  If the funding was to be rolled forward there was no guarantee that further centres would definitely open but the next centre would possibly be tested with Springfields Academy.

 

It was planned that the current centre in Trowbridge in its first year would take children from just Castle Mead (the school it is attached to). In the second year would take children from its cluster group and in the third year open out to the other Trowbridge schools.

 

Susan explained that the year 3 vision was that there would be 10 places in reach with the capacity to support 30 outreach places.  Children or young people did not require an EHCP to access the centre.  If the centre works well the ESFA will fund places and it would become a self-funding model and would make savings that may have had to be used on alternative placements.

 

 

Resolved:

That Schools Forum defer the decision on rolling forward the remaining £360k funding into 2018/19 until later in the meeting when all the budget demands had been discussed.

9.

Budget Setting 2018/19

To consider the budget for 2018/19. 

 

The attached update reports provide details on the overall funding settlement on each of the funding blocks, the decisions will be made after consideration of all of the update papers. 

 

a.    Schools Funding Settlement 2018-19

b.    Schools Block and funding formula

c.    Pupil Growth Fund

d.    Central Schools Services Block

e.    High Needs Block

f.      Early Years Block

g.    Schools Budget Decisions 2018-19.

 

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

a.          Schools Funding Settlement 2018/19

 

Liz Williams referred to the budget setting report for 2018/19 that was circulated with the Agenda and reported to the Forum that the DfE had issued the revenue funding settlement for schools on 20 December 2017. The provisional Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) allocation for Wiltshire Council was £342.498m which was an increase of £11.693m from 2017/18.  The table on page 25 of the Agenda showed the split of funding was now between four blocks and not 3 as previously - (Schools block, Central Schools Services block, High Needs block and Early Years block).

 

Liz explained about each of the blocks and highlighted that the Central Schools Services Block (CSSB) was new and had been calculated according to the new National Funding Formula (NFF) in which October 2017 pupil census numbers had been multiplied by a unit value of £30.96 and the funding for agreed historic agreements had then been added to this total.

 

Liz reported that the funding regulations did still allow for limited amounts of funding to be moved within the DSG blocks and as previously reported the Local Authority have the flexibility to move up to 0.5% from the Schools block to the High Needs block with the agreement of Schools Forum.

 

The Authority was required to submit their proposed delegated budget for schools in their areas to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) by 19 January 2018.  The ESFA would then need to confirm the formula is compliant with the funding regulations.  Once confirmed, the LA will then confirm and distribute the budget information for all maintained schools by the end of February 2018.  The ESFA would notify all academies of their budget information also by the end of February 2018.

 

Resolved:

 

That Schools Forum note the report.

 

 

b.         Schools Block and Funding Formula

 

Grant Davis reported that it had been previously agreed by Schools Forum that Wiltshire will move as close to the NFF as possible and Cabinet had approved the funding formula for 2018/19.  Grant informed that modelling work was underway to calculate individual school budgets based on the agreed formula.  The total shortfall between the NFF at published rates and funding received in the settlement was over £1.6m.  The reason for the variance was an increase in business rates and that a number of growing schools were being funding on estimated numbers than were counted in the October 2017 census.  200 additional pupils were being funded across 5 schools.

 

Grant reported that it had been previously agreed that a shortfall would be funded through a reduction in FSM6 rates and he was able to confirm that the rates would be lower than the EFA’s NFF rates and would be £410.40 for primary’s and £596.61 for secondary’s. This was 76% of the proposed NFF rate.  All other funding would remain at 100% of the NFF rates.

 

At the December 2017 Schools Forum meeting it had been agreed that a number of services were to be de-delegated.  It had been  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Appendix 1 to the Minutes - School Funding Quantums

Supporting documents:

Appendix 2 to the Minutes - Final Decision Matrix

Supporting documents:

10.

Confirmation of Dates for Future Meetings

To confirm the dates of future meetings, as follows, all to start at 1.30pm:

 

22 March 2018 – Kennet Room

28 June 2018 – Council Chamber

11 October 2018 – North Wilts Room

6 December 2018 – Kennet Room.

Minutes:

The meeting noted that the future meetings would be held on:

 

22 March 2018

28 June 2018

11 October 2018

6 December 2018.

11.

Urgent Items

To consider any other items of business, which the Chairman agrees to consider as a matter of urgency.

Minutes:

There were no urgent items.