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 23 January 2025(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 June 2025.  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 June 2025 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 – 20 March 2025 – to follow

·       Joint meeting of the School Funding Working Group and SEN Working Group – 22 May 2025 – 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.

The report of Liz Williams (Finance Lead – High Needs Sustainability) and Ben Stevens (Inclusion, SEND and AP Transformation Lead) seeks to update Schools Forum on the SEND Transformation Programme and shares the first quarterly monitoring report for 2025-26.

Simon Thomas (FACT Lead) will provide a brief verbal update at the meeting on current and future FACT projects.

The report of Lydia Thomas (MNERS Manager) seeks to brief Schools Forum on a traded service proposal and invite discussion on the Medical Needs Education and Reintegration Servies.  John Spring (Head of Targeted Education) will present an overview at the meeting.

The report of Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) seeks to present Schools Forum with an update on the work of the F40 campaigning group which comprises the lowest 43 funded Local Authorities in the country of which Wiltshire is a member.

The report of Liz Williams (Finance Lead – High Needs Sustainability Programme) seeks to brief Schools Forum on the consultation to be sent to all schools in the autumn of 2025 on the principles and value of any block transfer from schools block to high needs block in the 2026-27 financial year.

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) seeks to brief Schools Forum and seek agreement of a set of questions to be sent out to all maintained schools in the autumn of 2025.

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

9 October 2025

11 December 2025

29 January 2026

26 March 2026.

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