Agenda item

The report of Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) outlines the proposed changes for charging for Admissions Appeals for all schools from April 2020. 

Grant Davis (Schools Strategic Financial Support Manager) referred to the report circulated with the Agenda which outlined the proposed changes for charging for Admissions Appeals for all schools from April 2020.  Grant highlighted the following:

·       The National Funding Formula (NFF) for funding schools was introduced from the 2018/19 financial year.  There are four blocks of funding under the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) which are: Schools block, early years block, high needs block and central schools services block.  The central schools services block was designed to cover duties held by local authorities on behalf of all schools and those held specifically on behalf of maintained schools;

·       The Schools Revenue Funding 2019/20 – Operational Guide states that the local authority should not be treating voluntary aided, foundation schools or academies, differently from maintained schools;

·       Within Wiltshire, all school funding has been delegated to schools as part of the formula application, therefore no funding has been retained centrally for servicing admission appeals; and

·       The Council’s School Admissions Team has traditionally supported the appeals process wherever possible and some schools, particularly academy schools have put into place their own arrangements to mange the appeals.  The admissions appeal process involves time from both the School Admissions Team and a member of the Democratic Services Team.  The local authority is no longer in a position to support the appeals process without recovering the costs associated with it.  Charging all schools, regardless of their status will need to be consistently applied.

Forum members asked for details of the likely costs of the admission appeals.  Grant had obtained approximate costings from Democratic Services and these were shared with the Forum.  The cost of the admission appeal would need to be borne by the school at which the application for a place had been made and it was noted that popular schools that are oversubscribed would be the ones to take the bigger financial hit with these charges.  A member asked if maintained schools would have to use the appeals service provided by the local authority?  This would need to be clarified by Officers and reported back to the Forum.

The Forum were reassured by Marie Taylor that the proposed charges for the admissions appeals were comparable with other local authorities and did not generate a profit.  There was an expertise from both Admissions, Democratic Services and Panel members in administering appeals.

Some of the Forum members reported their own appeals admissions arrangements they currently had in place and there was a discussion about “buying” the service from other schools who have their own arrangements.  A forum member asked what academes had in place and whether this could be investigated.

The Forum felt that they needed further information/clarity on what other options there were and if maintained schools were obliged to use the service provided by the local authority.  They requested that a further report be presented at the next meeting on 10 October 2019.

Resolved:

1.    That Schools Forum note the content of the report.

2.    Receive a further report at the next meeting on 10 October 2019 to clarify if maintained schools were obliged to use the admissions appeals service provided by the local authority and to consider any other options available.