Agenda item

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) to provide members of Schools Forum with an update on the Department for Educations consultation “Reforming how local authority school improvement functions are funded”. In addition, Grant will provide members with the results of a local consultation regarding the future funding of School Improvement Services for maintained schools. (The consultation closes on 6^th  December 2021; this paper will be to follow).

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) referred to the report which was circulated as Agenda Supplement 1 which sought to provide an update on the DfE’s consultation ‘Reforming how local authority school improvement functions are funded’ and provided the results of a local consultation regarding the future funding of School Improvement Services for maintained schools.  Grant highlighted the following:

·         The consultation from the DfE was launched in late October 2021 with a closing date for responses of 26 November 2021.  Colleagues from the Schools and SEN Working Group met to discuss a response to the consultation which was shared with schools in November 2021.  All schools, governors and other stakeholders were encouraged to respond;

·         The 2 key questions of the consultation were to

a)     Remove the School Improvement Monitoring and Brokering Grant (SIMB) which is currently allocated to local authorities to support school improvement activities

b)     Make provisions within the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations for the financial year 2022-23 to allow local authorities to fund all of their school improvement activity via de-delegation from schools’ budget shares

·         The grant was introduced in 2017 to help local authorities fund school improvement activities and the proposal would be to reduce this grant by 50% for maintained schools for 2022-23 and then remove the grant for 2023-24;

·         There were 28 responses from the schools to the consultation – 25 primary, 2 secondary and 1 special.  There were a number of options of which the responses were asked to rank their preference.  The preference for 27/28 of the respondents was for the status quo to be retained with the DfE continuing to fully fund School Improvement through the SIMB; and

·         The second preference was to move to a de-delegation model with maintained schools having to de-delegate part of their budget to fund School Improvement services.

Catriona Williamson (maintained primary representative) stated that they currently bought in School Improvement services as they believed they were of higher quality and felt it would be hard for her to make a decision on behalf of all other maintained schools today and would have to justify to her Governors why there could be money taken out of their budget to fund School Improvement services that they did not wish to take up.

John Hawkins (Teaching representative) wished to report that from his Governor perspective of his School their School Improvement Adviser was outstanding and they were very pleased with their service.

Andy Bridewell (maintained primary representative) reported that he felt torn about this decision and would like the opportunity to share more information with their other maintained primary representatives and seek their views before being asked to make a decision. 

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) reported that decision could be taken at the 20 January meeting of Schools Forum to allow time for more discussion with maintained schools.

The Chair asked for other maintained school representatives for their views:

Sam Churchill (maintained primary representative) agreed that she would prefer to not make the decision today on behalf of other maintained schools.

Nigel Roper (maintained secondary representative) reported that he shared the views of colleagues and whilst there were only 4 secondary maintained schools, they were happy with the School Improvement services they were currently receiving and felt it would be best to defer the decision as there was no urgency for the decision to be made today.

Catriona Williamson (maintained primary representative) agreed with colleagues that she was not ready to make a decision today.

David Whewell reminded that the views of Governors of maintained schools views should also be sought.

Aileen Bates (maintained special school governor representative) reported that as the only maintained special school representative present she would also wish to consult with colleagues and defer the decision to the next meeting.

Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) offered to provide additional information from colleagues in School Improvement to explain about the grant to better inform the planned discussions with colleagues – this was welcomed by the maintained representatives.

Resolved:  

That Schools Forum note the local consultation responses in relation to the school improvement services for the 2022-23 financial year and postpone decision making until the January 2022 meeting.