The Forum will receive verbal updates from Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) on the following:
· New Pay Scales for APT&C staff
· October National Funding Formula meeting.
Minutes:
The Forum received the following verbal updates from Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager).
Bids to the MOD’s Education Support Funding
The Army were rebasing families from Germany to Wiltshire in the summer of 2019 and it was expected that there would be over 1000 children arriving and needing school places. The Council had made 4 bids to the MOD’s Education Support Fund which has a total budget of £3m.
The results of these bids have now been concluded and requests for bids totalled £10m. Grant was pleased to report that Wiltshire was to receive over £1m of the £3m available funding as follows:
Bid for £1m Allocated £750k To be used to recruit an extra teacher in each school.
Bid for £460k Allocated £340k For SEN support in schools.
Bid for funding of a post for an additional School Admissions Officer was agreed.
Schools would also put in their own bids for extra funding and now that this funding was confirmed the planning work could commence as soon as possible. It was felt that the MOD gave us recognition about the impact this re-basing programme will have on Wiltshire.
The Forum noted the work that had gone into submitting the bids for funding and wished to thank all those involved in this process and we pleased with its fruition.
Growth Fund
The authority would ordinarily be approving the criteria for the Growth Fund at this meeting. Due to clarification being required from the DfE regarding the growth monies in respect of Army Rebasing, the criteria could not be confirmed at this meeting and would need to be confirmed at the next meeting.
Teacher’s Pay Award Grant
Following the notification of the grant to support the teachers’ pay award, it had been identified that some primary schools had received too much money as the children in reception had been double counted. There was an overpayment and a few schools were impacted by this. The DfE have confirmed that no recoupment would take place and that for schools that had been under-funded, the correct funding would be distributed before the end of December.
New Pay Spines for Support Staff
A new pay spine for support staff is scheduled to be introduced from April 2019. Colleagues in the HR teams are working with the Trade Unions to agree the proposed movement of staff from the old pay spines to the new pay spines. HR will be releasing guidance to schools before Christmas.
MOD Army Rebasing
It is confirmed that up to £2.8m has been allocated to Wiltshire for the period from September 2019 to March 2020 to help with the impact of Army Rebasing. In addition, the DfE will commit funding for the period from April 2020 to August 2020 for Academies as the DfE had agreed that Wiltshire should not be disadvantaged financially following the Army rebasing. This was to allow for growth of the schools. This agreement was a milestone point.
Resolved:
That the Forum note all of the verbal updates provided at the meeting.