Agenda

Items to be considered whilst the meeting is open to the public

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

To approve as a correct record and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 17 October 2024(copy attached).

To receive any announcements from the Chair.

To note any declarations of interests.

Schools Forum welcomes contributions from members of the public who are able to ask questions or make a statement in relation to the responsibilities and functions of the Forum at each meeting. A maximum of 15 minutes will be allocated to this at the start of each meeting, and each question or statement should last no longer than 3 minutes.   Please register with the Officer named on this agenda, and in accordance with the deadlines below.

Statements

Members of the public who wish to submit a statement in relation to an item on this agenda should submit this electronically to the Officer named on the agenda no later than 5pm on Tuesday 10 December 2024.  Statements must not be defamatory, frivolous, offensive, vexatious, unlawful or otherwise improper. They must not name or identify individual service users, members of staff or members of partner agencies.

Questions

Those wishing to ask questions are required to give notice of any such questions to the Officer named on the front of this agenda no later than 5pm on Thursday 5 December 2024 to allow a response to be formulated.  Questions are limited to a maximum of 2 per person/organisation. A response will be given as either a direct oral answer or a written reply. Questions must not require the disclosure of confidential information.  The Chair’s ruling on rejection of a question is final.

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

·      Early Years Reference Group – 26 November 2024 – to follow

·       Joint meeting of the School Funding Working Group and SEN Working Group – 28 November 2024 – attached.

The report of Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) seeks to present budget monitoring information against the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) for the financial year 2024-25 as at quarter 2 2024-25 (September 2024).

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manger) seeks to update Schools Forum with the results of the recent autumn consultations relating to the de-delegation of central services and de-delegation in support of former Local Authority Monitoring and Brokering (LAMB) Grant for maintained schools.

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) seeks agreement on the methodology for allocating funding for pupil growth from the school’s block growth fund in 2025-26.

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager seeks to obtain ‘in principle’ decisions from Schools Forum with regards to the Wiltshire funding formula for the 2025-26 year and to update on the National Funding Formula for 2025-26.

The report of Liz Williams (Finance Lead – High Needs Sustainability) seeks to update Schools Forum on the outcomes of the consultation on the proposal to transfer 1% from the schools block to the high needs block in 2025-26.

Liz Williams (Finance Lead – High Needs Block Sustainability) and Ben Stevens (Sustainability Strategic Lead) will give a verbal update on the SEND Transformation programme at the meeting.

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

23 January 2025

13 March 2025

12 June 2025

9 October 2025

11 December 2025.

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

Item(s) during consideration of which it is recommended that the public should be excluded because of the likelihood that exempt information would be disclosed