Agenda item

The report of Marie Taylor (Interim Head of Finance) presents the budget monitoring information for the financial year 2018/19 as at 31 December 2018.

Marie Taylor (Interim Head of Finance) referred to the budget monitoring report as at 31 December 2018 that was circulated with the Agenda.  Marie highlighted the following:

·       That there was an improved position from what was reported at the December meeting of Schools Forum, with an overspend of £2.307 million projected against the overall schools’ budget;

·       An underspend on the Early Years Block was forecast of £0.818 million and this variance on projections and take up was largely due to parental choice of take up of the childcare entitlement;

·       The forecast overspend on the High Needs Block is £3.331 million (down from £4.1 million reported in December).  The Secretary of State announced in mid-December an additional £250 million would be made available to support high needs with Wiltshire’s revenue allocations for 2018/19 and 2019/20 being £1.128 million each year;

·       £100 million of capital funding has also been allocated by the Secretary of State, but the announcements about an allocation for Wiltshire has not been made yet.  The Local Authority have been told that there will be a “green light” to free school bids and we are anticipating the outcome of our bid for a Special School provision in the south of the county later this month;

·       A major pressure on the High Needs Block is the high number of EHCP’s.  The overspend is 9% of the total budget and this is a 16% increase on the numbers of EHCP’s;

·       There was a small forecast underspend on central schools’ budgets which might be available to fund other identified funding pressures such as union duties which was previously discussed at Schools Forum; and

·       The report proposes that in view of the forecast overspend on the High Needs block, and the forecast underspend on the Early Years block, the Early Years Inclusion Fund is no longer supported by high need funding and is fully funded by the Early Years block.  This would not impact the bottom line but support the premise that the Early Year funding block should match the Early Years activity.  We would not wish for this to be a precedent for future years, but for this year we could move money to where the need is.

An Early Years representative member reported that Early Years were sympathetic to the current predicament and in theory thought that it was reasonable that the Early Years underspend be used to reduce the High Need block deficit and that there could be a transfer to where the spending is currently needed but limited to current forecast expenditure levels, not budgeted levels.  Marie confirmed that this was acceptable and the Local Authority could move forward on this basis for 2018/19 only.

It was noted that any 2019/20 budget decisions would be taken at the end of the meeting.

Resolved:

1.    That Schools Forum note the budget monitoring position at the end of December 2018, the continued pressure on high needs budgets and supports and contributes to the on-going work of the High Needs Working Group.

2.    That the Early Years Inclusion Fund be wholly funded from Early Years block at the forecast level of expenditure for 2018/19.

3.    That the forecast outturn should be used to inform the 2019/20 budget setting report later in the Agenda.