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Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - County Hall, Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, BA14 8JN. View directions

Items
No. Item

24.

Apologies and Changes of Membership

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

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Andy Bridewell (PHF Vice Chair), Nicola Coupe (Salisbury Diocesan Board of Education), Jen Jones (Observer from Wiltshire College) and from Terence Herbert (Corporate Director – Wiltshire Council.

 

Nicola Coupe (School Improvement Advisor) is the new representative from the Salisbury Diocesan Board of Education, although was unable to be present at the meeting.

 

Victoria Allison from Wiltshire College attended in place of Jen Jones.

25.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

To approve as a correct record and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 22 March 2018(copy attached).

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 22 March 2018 were approved as a correct record.

 

Resolved:

 

That the Chairman sign the minutes of the meeting held on 22 March 2018.

26.

Chairman's Announcements

To receive any announcements from the Chair.

 

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed Marie Taylor (Interim Head of Finance) to the Forum and asked all others present to introduce themselves.

 

The Chairman suggested that Agenda item 7 (Update from Families and Children’s Transformation (FACT) Programme Board be brought forward to be the first item for consideration and this was agreed.

 

The Chairman asked Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) to provide a verbal update on the National Funding Formula.

 

Grant reported that he had attended a meeting in Sheffield regarding the National Funding Formula recently and that the DfE announced that there was to be an increase in the ‘minimum per pupil funding’ rates of £200 in both primary and secondary to £3,500 and £4,800 respectively.  Other tweaks to the NFF were discussed including the continuation of the ‘soft’ formula in 2019-20 and the Schools Financial Value Standard (SFVS).  The SFVS process is subject to a DfE review and although they would remain for the 2018/19 year, they would be reviewed in 2019/20 and would be introduced under a different guise. 

 

We would receive guidance on NFF in July and confirmation of our NFF funding in September/October.  A further update would be presented at the next Schools Forum meeting.

 

27.

Declaration of Interests

To note any declarations of interests.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

28.

Wiltshire Schools Forum Membership and Terms of Reference

The report of Lisa Pullin (Democratic Services Officer) seeks approval to the revision of the Forum’s Terms of Reference by the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills and highlights membership vacancies in order that these can be recruited to for the beginning of the academic year 2018/19.

 

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

Lisa Pullin (Clerk to the Panel) referred to the Proportionality, Membership and Terms of Reference report that had been circulated with the Agenda.  As part of best practice, a proportionality of membership review had been carried and as there had been limited changes to the numbers of Wiltshire schools which had converted to academies, it was not proposed that there were any changes made to the numbers of membership of the Schools Forum.

 

The Terms of Reference that were last approved in October 2015 had been reviewed by Grant Davis and he was suggesting a change to paragraph 2.2 of the Terms of Reference.  This change would clarify who had observer status to the Forum.  Any changes to the TOR’s would need to be presented to the Cabinet Member for Education & Skills through the delegated decision process.

 

The Forum were also being asked to confirm the current membership and note that there were currently vacancies for the following:

 

·       A primary academy representative

·       A secondary Governor representative

·       A primary Governor representative.

 

It was agreed that we should request representatives to fill these vacancies from the Primary Heads Forum and Wiltshire Governors Association.

 

The Forum noted that a request had been received from Lucy Townsend (Director – Families and Children’s Services) for Nick Breakwell (Head of Service – SEND) to attend future meetings of the Forum.  Discussion then followed on other bodies that could be represented at the Schools Forum meetings and it was agreed to seek representatives from the following (who would have Observer status)

 

·       Wiltshire Parent Carer Council

·       Wiltshire Children and Families Voluntary Sector Forum

·       Local Youth Network

 

Resolved:

 

That Wiltshire Schools Forum:

 

a)         Notes that the proportionality of the Forum has been reviewed and that no changes are recommended.

 

b)         Agree to seek representatives from the following (who will have Observer status)

 

i)       Wiltshire Parent Carer Council

ii)   Wiltshire Children and Families Voluntary Sector Forum

iii)  Local Youth Network

 

c)         Endorse the following changes to paragraph 2.2 to the Terms of Reference by removing the following

 

In addition to voting members there are 5 observers, 1 each from the 13-19 Strategic Partnership and ASK, 2 elected governor representatives from the Council’s Children Select Committee are also invited as observers ex officio and the Education Funding Agency has observer status.

 

And replacing it with the following wording:

 

In addition to voting members, the following representatives will have observer status:

 

i)       Education & Skills Funding Agency

ii)      Post-16 representative

iii)    Wiltshire Parent Carer Council

iv)    Wiltshire Children and Families Voluntary Sector Forum

v)      Local Youth Network

 

        Then request that that these changes to the Terms of Reference be presented to the Cabinet Member for Education & Skills for approval through the delegated decision process.

 

d)         Notes the current Membership details of the Forum.

 

e)         Recommends that representatives to the vacancies detailed in the report be requested to be appointed by the Primary Heads Forum (PHF), and Wiltshire Association for Secondary and Special Heads (WASSH) and Wiltshire Governors Association (WGA) as soon as possible.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.

29.

Reports from Working Groups

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

 

a)    Meeting of the Early Years Reference Group – 4 May 2018.

b)    Joint Meeting of the School Funding Working Group and SEN Working Group – 11 June 2018.

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

The meeting received and noted the minutes from the following working groups:

 

·       Early Years Reference Group; and

·       School Funding Working Group and SEN Working Group (joint meeting).

 

Resolved:

 

That Wiltshire Schools Forum note the minutes of the Early Years Reference Group meeting held on 4 May 2018 and the joint meeting of the Schools Funding Working Group and SEN Working Group meeting held on 11 June 2018.

 

 

30.

Update from the Families and Children's Transformation (FACT) Programme Board

The Children and Young People’s Trust Board has now ceased and been replaced with the Families and Children’s Transformation (FACT) Programme Board.  Tamsin Stone (Lead Commissioner) will provide a verbal update to the Forum on behalf of the Programme Board.

Minutes:

Tamsin Stone (Lead Commissioner) was present to provide an update on the Families and Children’s Transformation (FACT) Programme Board.  This was in place of the usual Children and Young People’s Trust Board update as this Board had now ceased.  The presentation is attached as Appendix 1 to the Minutes.  Tamsin highlighted the following:

 

·            That FACT is a partnership of agencies working together to achieve whole-system change – in order to significantly improve the chances of all our children living safely, healthily and happily in their own families and communities.  It was identified that the agencies need to work together differently due to pressures on public funding, the need to eradicate gap and duplication and to improve outcomes for vulnerable children;

 

·            There were five driving principles for FACT and the programme would follow the principles of system leadership and will focus on the outcomes; and

 

·            There were 8 partnership workstreams with over 30 projects making up those streams.  Each project had a lead that would report to the 8 workstream leads who would report into the monthly FACT Board meetings.  The FACT Board then reports into the Health and Wellbeing Board.

 

Some highlighted examples of planned activities were given as:

 

·            Co-producing a shared Partnership Strategy with children, families and partners;

·            Investing in Systems Leadership;

·            Developing an Early Support Hub and local pathways – to work seamlessly with the exiting Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH);

·            Exploring IT- enabled partnership working via a new Case Management System

·            A review of SEN support for children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health difficulties and a review of the Lead Worker function.

Tamsin asked how best to ensure Schools engage with the programme – to shape and define the project priorities and participate in the development work.  The Forum suggested that the FACT Team liaise with the Primary Heads Forum (PHF), Wiltshire Association of Secondary School Heads (WASSH) and the Wiltshire Governors Association (WGA) and attend their meetings when appropriate.

 

The Chairman thanked Tamsin for her attendance and requested that further updates be provided as required.

 

Resolved:

 

That Wiltshire Schools Forum receive an update from the FACT Board at their next meeting on 11 October 2018.

Appendix 1 to the Minutes - FACT Presentation

Supporting documents:

31.

Revenue Budget Outturn 2017-18 - Dedicated Schools Budget

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) reports on the outturn position for the Dedicated Schools Budget in 2017-18.

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

Marie Taylor (Interim Head of Finance) referred to the Revenue Budget Outturn Report for 2017/18 which had been circulated with the Agenda.  Marie highlighted the following:

 

·       The DSG was underspent by £0.509m which was an improvement of £1.381 million compared to the forecast at the end of January 2018.  Any under or overspend against the DSG is carried forward to the following financial year and the underspend will be transferred to the earmarked DSG Reserve.;

 

·       The main variances were overspend on SEN of £1.722m and underspend on Early Years of £0.617m; and

 

·       Wiltshire, whilst in a difficult position, were in a better position than some other local authorities.

 

Resolved:

 

That Wiltshire Schools Forum note the outturn position for the Dedicated Schools Budget in 2017/18.

32.

Funding Factors - Trade Union Facilities Time

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) seeks to provide an update to the Forum on the projected expenditure against the Trade Union facility budget for 2018/19 and budget required for 2019/20.

 

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) referred to the report on Funding Factors – Trade Union Facilities Time that was circulated with the Agenda.  Grant highlighted the following:

 

·            This was last discussed at the Forum meeting on 5 October 2017, when it was agreed that the Trade Union Facilities Time budget be increased from £50,000 to £60,000 in line with the commitments against the budget;

 

·            The teaching unions have requested that it is brought to the attention of the School Funding Working Group that the budget may be insufficient to cover the draw against it for 2018/19 and that a further increase may be necessary, in light of requests also coming through from Support Staff Unions; and

 

·            There is a projected overspend and the budget for the facility fund for 2019/20 would need to be reviewed in the Autumn when agreeing the 2019/20 budgets and consideration will need to be given to any parameters to attach to this budget.

 

Resolved:

 

That Wiltshire Schools Forum

 

1.          Note the potential overspend against the 2018/19 budget for the Facilities Fund Budget.

 

2.          Review the budget for the Facilities Fund Budget for 2019/20 in the Autumn when agreeing the 2019/20 school budgets, along with any parameters around apportionment of the budget.

33.

Guidance on Provision for pupils with SEN in Secondary schools

The report of Susan Tanner (Head of Commissioning and Joint Planning) seeks to update Schools Forum on the development of updated guidance for SEN in secondary schools.

 

Supporting documents:

Minutes:

Judith Westcott (Lead Commissioner, SEN) referred to the proposed revised guidance on provision for pupils with SEN in secondary schools and report that had been circulated with the Agenda. 

 

Judith explained that following a request from Schools Forum, they were tasked to look at the guidance on SEND provision in Secondary Schools.  This guidance has now been developed and has incorporated the 2014 Children and Families Act guidance for Enhanced Learning Provision (ELP) to ensure that ELP was fulfilling its function as the follow on provision to resource bases in primary schools.

 

A working group of SENCO’s from secondary settings was set up and they drafted a new set of guidance which sought to address these issues.  This was sent out to all Secondary Schools asking them to review the draft guidance.  Three workshops were set up and Business Managers and secondary SENCOS were invited to comment on and review the draft.  Following this, minor changes were made to the guidance and it was resent to all schools.

 

Schools Forum were being asked to approve the proposed guidance for SEND Provision in Secondary Schools.

 

The Chairman referred to Appendix 1 which set out the number of places agreed with each of the secondary schools for the 2018/19 year and asked if SENCO’s were surprised with the numbers of ELP places at some schools.  Judith confirmed that they were surprised to see the lack of parity across all the secondary schools. 

 

A Forum member asked if the guidance had gone through to WASSH for consideration.  Judith confirmed that it would do, although individual schools would have seen it through the consultation period.

 

The Chairman wished to express the Forum’s thanks to the SEND Teams and SENCO’s and to Judith for carrying out this large piece of work so well.

 

Resolved:

 

That Wiltshire Schools Forum approve the proposed Guidance for SEND Provision in Secondary Schools.

34.

Special School Update

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) will provide a verbal update on Special Schools at the meeting.

Minutes:

Alan Stubbersfield (Interim Director – Education & Skills) provided a verbal update on the consultation on options for the future of Special Schools in the north of the county to increase the capacity by 150 places by 2026.  Alan urged all schools to respond to the consultation which is running from 13 June to 31 July 2018 (link below).  Some responses had already been received, mostly from those in the north of the county. 

 

http://wiltshire.objective.co.uk/portal/education/special_school_provision_in_wiltshire

 

Following the consultation, the responses would be pulled together to identify options for the direction of travel and this would be presented to Cabinet in September 2018.  A single way forward would then be subject to a second round of consultation with conclusions expected to go to the January cabinet.  The proposed way forward would then be sent to the Secretary of State and it would be 2019 before a final conclusion is reached.

 

An implementation process with a 3-year timescale would then follow.  This was an ambitious high-profile project for the Council and they are prepared to invest many millions of pounds into it to make sure that it provides the best solution for Wiltshire’s young people.

 

Resolved:

 

That the Special School update be noted.

35.

Request from Exeter House Special School

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) will provide a verbal update on a request from Exeter House Special School at the meeting.

 

Minutes:

Grant Davis reported that a request had been received from Exeter House Special School for additional funding as they had expanded their provision and were also running the school from the former John Ivie Centre in Salisbury.  This had been led by the school to enhance their provision and was not Council led, but given that the Council were reviewing operational capacity for special school places, this request would be considered.

 

Grant explained that in principle the Council could look at the high needs block funding as the Council is continuing to look at increasing capacity.  A review of the costs and whether it was feasible to run the school on a second site and the additional costs would need to be fully considered. 

 

Forum members asked the following questions:

 

Q     Is the John Ivie Centre currently being used by Exeter House School as it looks derelict from the outside?

 

A      Yes, it is currently being used and it is shared with a church group who use it on a Sunday.

 

Q     Did the local authority promise funding for the school to expand to another site at any point?

 

A      No, Exeter House went ahead with the expansion of the school and the possibility of additional funding was not discussed – they did it to enhance their own provision.  With this request now coming in this is giving us an opportunity to review and the potential options going forward for the school to expand. 

 

Q     We had previously said no to their request for additional funding and now as they are already up and running, why are they requesting funds from us if they thought they could do it without us?

 

A      That’s what we need to find out from them – are there additional pupils now on that site?

 

Q     If funding was granted to Exeter House, would this affect other top up payments?

 

A      This is what we need to consider/balance out.  If we cannot provide special school places when needed we would have to use placements out of county and these can cost twice as much.

 

Marie Taylor confirmed that there would be a group set up to review this request from Exeter House and that the comments received from Schools Forum would be noted as part of the response.  An update would be provided at the next Forum meeting.

 

Resolved:

 

That the request from Exeter House School be noted and that an update be received at the meeting on 11 October 2018.

 

36.

Confirmation of Dates for Future Meetings

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

 

11 October 2018 – North Wilts Room

6 December 2018 – Kennet Room

Minutes:

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

 

11 October 2018 and

6 December 2018.

37.

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.