Agenda and minutes

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

Apologies were received from Jon Hamp (Special School Academy Representative), Cllr Laura Mayes (Cabinet Member for Children, Education & Skills), Giles Pugh (Salisbury Diocesan Board of Education), and Lynn Yendle (School Business Manager Springfield School). 

Membership changes

Cllrs Suzanne Wickham (Portfolio Holder for SEND) and Cllr Dominic Muns (Portfolio Holder for Education) were welcomed to Schools Forum.

To approve as a correct record and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 11 March 2021 (copy attached).

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 11 March 2021 were approved.

Resolved:

That the Chairman approve and sign the minutes of the meeting of Schools forum held on 11 March 2021. 

To receive any announcements from the Chair.

The Chair made the following announcements:

Neil Baker as Chair of Schools Forum thanked everyone for his leaving card as he was retiring from Christ Church Primary School in Bradford on Avon and thus stepping down as Chair of Schools Forum a role that he had held for 14 years.  Neil reported that he would miss Schools Forum colleagues and hoped that the true collaboration of the group all wanting the best outcomes for the children would continue.

School Admissions Appeals update

Section 88P of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (the Act) requires every local authority to make an annual report on school admissions to the adjudicator. The Chief Adjudicator then includes a summary of these reports in her annual report to the Secretary for State for Education.  The report provides information on how the admissions arrangements in the local authority serve looked after children and previously looked after children, as well as providing an assessment of the effectiveness of the Fair Access Protocols.

Wiltshire Council is currently in the process of drafting the report for 2021, which must be submitted by 30 June 2021. Once finished the report will be published on the School Admissions section of the Wiltshire Council website and will be circulated to School Forum in October.

Within the 2021 report, there is limited opportunity to comment on Education Appeals.  However, there is a section which provides the option to comment on other matters that have not been included within the report.  It is therefore in this section, that we will reference following the change in legislation around the funding for education appeals, that schools within Wiltshire continue to feel the system discriminates against those that are popular and places significant pressures on school budgets.  This is despite the fact that the local authority has created options for school to purchase the service on a pay as you go basis and offer discounts to schools that have multiple appeals.

To note any declarations of interests.

There were no interests declared.

Schools Forum welcomes contributions from members of the public. During the ongoing Covid-19 situation the Forum is operating revised procedures and the public are able participate in meetings online after registering with the officer named on this agenda, and in accordance with the deadlines below. A maximum of 15 minutes will be allocated to public participation at the start of each meeting.

Guidance on how to participate in this meeting online  (add link here!)

Statements

Members of the public who wish to submit a statement in relation to an item on this agenda should submit this is electronically to the officer named on this agenda no later than 5pm on Tuesday 8 June 2021 (1 clear working day before the meeting). Statements should take no longer than 3 minutes to be read aloud.

Questions

Those wishing to ask questions are required to give notice of any such questions electronically to the officer named on the front of this agenda no later than 5pm on Thursday 3 June 2021 to allow a response to be formulated.  Questions are limited to a maximum of 2 per person or organisation.

Please contact the officer named on the front of this agenda for further advice.

No questions or statements had been received prior to the meeting.

The Forum will be asked to note the minutes/updates from the following meetings:

·         Joint meeting of the School Funding Working Group and SEN Working Group – 27 May 2021

·         Early Years Reference Group – 27 April 2021 and 19 May 2021

The Forum noted the update received by way of the minutes of the meeting of the School Funding and SEN working group held on 27 May 2021. 

The Forum noted the update received by way of the minutes of the meetings of the Early Years Reference Group meeting held on 27 April and 19 May 2021. 

There were no questions raised from the notes of the meetings.

Resolved:

That Schools Forum note the minutes of the joint meeting of the School Funding and SEN working group held on 27 May 2021 and the Early Years Reference group meetings held on 27 April and 19 May 2021.

The report of Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) seeks to present the final outturn budget monitoring information against the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) for the financial year 2020/21 as at 31^st March 2021.

Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) referred to the budget monitoring outturn report as at 31 March 2021 that was circulated with the Agenda.  Marie highlighted the following:

·         A final overspend of £7.906 million against the overall school’s budget which was an improved position than previously reported in part due to staff time supporting Covid activity being chargeable to certain Covid grants;

·         The pandemic had created much uncertainty for early years and Officers had worked with the Early Years Reference Group to ascertain what best suited the needs in the sector;

·         The Local Authority has a duty of sufficiency for early years and continued to work closely with providers to support them, providing additional financial support whilst following the Covid guidance within the terms and conditions of the grant funding.  The intention was for any significant underspends to be re-distributed to settings under the local discretion guidance.  However, most still attended settings even if they were different from their usual as dual placements were not allowed due to Covid;

·         The EYRG requested that the early years block variance for future years (i.e. for 21-22 financial year onwards) be separately ringfenced. The national regulations assume this is the case anyway and so from 1 April 2021 all variances and logged funding changes will be separately accounted for and reported;

·         The 19-20 adjustment based on the January 2020 census data was an increase of £0.539 million. In addition, the 20-21 allocation increased by £0.943 million. This reflected a higher count of children than the previous year;

·         The Contain Outbreak Management Fund (COMF) of £1m was the only dedicated funding that early years received, and Officers were pleased to be able to support settings in this way.  The payments made totalled £0.418m in 20-21 and it had been agreed that agreed that the unclaimed allocation of £0.582M could be rolled forward to support the
sector in the 2021-22 financial year which was great news as the impact on settings still continued with bubbles closing and cleaning costs etc;

·         The underspend on schools’ budgets largely related to the school’s growth fund which was helping to offset the overall pressure on the DSG;

·         High needs budgets overspent by £11.507m. The biggest areas of overspend were named pupil allowances and top ups, independent special school packages, and alternative provision. When the level of funding available does not match the local needs the budget cannot be set at an achievable level and so the location of the overspend is not an indication of individual budget issues but that the whole block under significant pressure and the major driver of the overspend is volume;

·         The numbers of EHCP’s has increased year on year although the number being requested has slightly slowed – this could be due to the reduced face to face contact with pupils due to the Covid pandemic.  However, they were now playing catch up with many referrals now being submitted;

·         Details were given in paragraph 21 of the report of the volume  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The minutes of the meeting of the High Needs Block Working Group held on 6 May 2021 are attached.  The Forum will also receive an update on behalf of the Working Group and there will be a spotlight on the dyslexia friendly school project.

Helean Hughes (Director – Education & Skills) and Cate Mullen (Head of Inclusion & SEND) gave an overview on the work of the HNB Recovery Group and highlighted the following:

·         The pandemic had had a significant impact on the work of the high need recovery plan, although they were just getting back up to speed.  It was difficult to attribute savings made to just one project and it was proposed that at future meetings of Schools Forum they would receive details of the savings made/identified/action by the high needs block recovery group;

·         At the scheduled meeting with the DfE next week Officers would be asking if there was anything else they could suggest to make savings and any findings would be reported back to the Forum;

·         The High Needs Block Recovery Plan was very detailed – the three main areas that were encompassed within it were

i)             Early Intervention  and Prevention

ii)            Statutory Processes

iii)           Quality Assurance and Monitoring

·         There were Officers leading on projects – regular updates were received from them.  For some projects it was harder to note the savings achieved and some are longer term pieces of work which will take a while for the savings to come through.  There were ongoing discussions about work relating to the development of provision mapping tools to support discussions and decisions relating to funding requests;

·         High Needs Block information sharing sessions had been made available to teams within Education and Skills directorate so that they were able to offer support to schools had been well received by colleagues;

·         In relation to the System of excellence – a series of engagement (roadshow) events for officers and schools’ settings had been taking place.  So far four of the hour-long events had been held and two more were planned for external partners.  There had been a very good level of engagement in them.

A Governor representative asked if there would be any of these events put in place for Governors.  Cate Mullen agreed to liaise with outside of the meeting to discuss this further.

Ian Abbott (Lead Professional – Cognition and Learning) gave an overview of the Dyslexia-Friendly Schools Award and highlighted the following:

·         This was a national scheme which leads to a dyslexia friendly BDA (British Dyslexia Association) Quality Mark and was based on “If the child does not learn the way you teach, then teach the way he learns”;

·         Dyslexia was prevalent in lots of creative industries and a poem was shared which when read from the bottom to the top gives a different meaning;

·         There were a number of benefits in joining the scheme which also fits in with the Council’s SEND Strategy;

·         There was a two-year programme which ran from initial registration in the scheme.  Schools were being supported in their progression of the scheme with narrated PowerPoints, virtual training sessions, DFS network meetings and remote support and schools were coming together to share good practice with each other.  There was a clear scheme criterion to follow and after 2 years  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) seeks to provide Schools Forum with an update on the implications of the change to the Department for Education’s date for calculating Pupil Premium for schools. 

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) referred to the report which sought to provide Schools Forum with an update on the implications of the change to the DfE date for calculating Pupil Premium for schools.  Grant highlighted the following:

·         The f40 group had collated the financial impact from its members to obtain a wider picture of the implications from moving the Pupil Premium census date from January, back to the previous October;

·         The Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) is designed to support pupils and learners using the following three drivers for allocating funding;

-    Free School Meal Ever6 – pupils from a deprivation background

-    Service Pupil Ever6 – pupils from a service family

-    Post-Looked After Child – pupils who have left local authority care        through an adoption or guardianship order

·         PPG has always been calculated using the January census however as the January data was the most up to date census information available for the next financial year;

·         The DfE when questioned gave the following explanation for the date change:

-       Aligning the census date with mainstream funding to October

-       During Covid, school pupils were not in school during January but were in October;

·         There is an impact in moving the date as both locally and nationally there has been a significant increase in the number of pupils eligible for a free school meal (FSM) and the knock on effect will result in a lower number of pupils being eligible for PPG funding. In effect this this would create a lag or shortfall in PPG funding for schools in 2021-22;

·         Schools would still be required to support their disadvantaged PPG pupils and be held to account by Ofsted for their progress, despite not being fully funded for those pupils;

·         For Wiltshire position this would mean a shortfall in funding of £555k.  £493k for primary schools and £62k for secondary schools;

·         The results of the f40 survey to its 42 members show that the overall picture shows £36.4m of significant funding that has been lost just from moving the census date;

·         The f40 group are asking the DfE to consider either delaying the change or compensating schools for the funding they will miss out on this year as schools will have to find the money from elsewhere to support disadvantaged pupils when funding is already tight and so other parts of their budgets will suffer;

·         The Society of County Treasurers (SCT) are doing a survey of DSG deficits across local authorities which would form part of their ongoing pressure for the funding and management of DSG deficits in light of the significant growth in demand in EHCP’s.  The results of the survey should be available in September and would be brought to the October meeting of the Forum.

The Chair wanted to emphasise that the provision for those disadvantaged learners would still continue despite not receiving the funding but felt it was important for schools to show the DfE how budgets would be under further pressure because of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

The report of Louise Lewis (Head of School Effectiveness) seeks to share with Schools Forum the DfE’s consultation around School Improvement brokerage and monitoring grant.

Helean Hughes (Director – Education & Skills) referred to the report which sought to share the DfE’s consultation around School Improvement brokerage and monitoring grant.  Helean highlighted the following:

·         The DfE issued a consultation on 28 April 2021 regarding the future funding levels of the school improvement brokerage and monitoring grant which ran until 26 May;

·         The Local Authority responded to the survey highlighting the following major points:

a)        Any additional responsibilities without funding will dilute the ability to support all pupils and schools

b)        Although numbers of maintained schools have reduced from 153 in 2017-18 to 126 in 20-21, the grant is used to support all schools and therefore reductions should not be made on a straight-line basis.

c)         A reduction in grant or, an increase in conditions will mean school support will need to be prioritised and current support will be impacted.

·         The grant of £0.531m currently received allows the Local Authority to divert uncommitted central schools services block monies to support the high needs block.

The Chair asked when the responses to the consultation would be shared – Helean Hughes guessed this would be anytime from September 2021 onwards

Resolved:

That Schools Forum note the DfE’s consultation, the Local Authority response and future risks around the funding and provision of School Improvement.

The report of Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) seeks to present the permanent legislative changes around the format of Schools Forum meetings and the responses to the consultation following these changes in legislation.

Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children & Education) referred to the report which sought to present the permanent legislative changes around the format of Schools Forum meetings and the responses to the consultation following these changes in legislation.  Marie highlighted the following:

·         During the pandemic there was a temporary change to the legislation to allow Schools Forum meetings to take place remotely.  The ESFA had now made a permanent change to the legislation to allow local flexibility to choose whether to hold meetings remotely or face to face;

·         Because of the pandemic the March 2020 meeting of Schools Forum was cancelled, and any still relevant reports were brought to the June meeting.  The minimum number of meetings required per year was four.  Officers were proposing that Schools Forum consider dropping the March meeting with the option to add it back if/when needed;

·         Forum members had been consulted indicating their preferences for meeting arrangements and the majority of responses had agreed that it would be beneficial to hold the December meeting when budget principles were discussed and the January meeting where the budgets were voted on as face to face meetings but to continue with remote meetings for the other meetings – this would also help with the Council’s carbon neutral agenda;

The Chair agreed that for the important decision-making meeting there was not as much conversation with an online meeting and that the proposals put forward to have the two main decision-making meetings face to face would be beneficial.

Resolved: That Schools Forum

1. Note the permanent change in statutory arrangements around Schools Forum meetings.

2. Agree that Schools Forums meetings are held virtually with the exception of the main decision-making meetings which are generally, December to agree formula changes and transfers in principal and January, where the schools budget formula is voted on and finalised.

3. Agree that the number of future meetings be reduced to four per annum; January, June, October and December – with the March meeting available as optional should urgent items arise, or decision making be required.

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

7 October 2021

9 December 2021

20 January 2022

17 March 2022.

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

7 October 2021 – via Microsoft Teams

9 December 2021 – meeting at County Hall – room TBC

20 January 2022 – meeting at County Hall – room TBC.

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

Helean Hughes gave a farewell to Neil Baker on behalf of Schools Forum who had chaired the Forum meetings so well for the last 14 years.