Agenda and minutes

Maria Artingstoll

Tracy Rees

Sheena Wheatley

None.

Minutes of the meeting held on 9 November 2017, for confirmation.

The minutes of the meeting held on 9 November 2017 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Lucy Juby, Project Manager, School Organisation, introduced the report outlining the proposed requirements of the Pupil Growth Contingency Fund (PGCF) for 2018/19, which will be used to fund growth in both maintained schools and academies. Lucy highlighted the following:

(a)  £697,645 has already been committed for pupil growth in 2018/19 due to ongoing expansions and bulge years. The contingency has been increase due to upcoming required growth in secondary schools;

(b)  the current funding criteria for primary school growth was agreed in 2013. The final planned primary school expansions are now underway and the city-wide position for primary provision at first entry is good;

(c)  the increased demand for school places is moving from the primary phase into the secondary phase and a minimum of 15-17 additional forms of entry will be required city-wide, with demand projected to peak by 2022. Therefore, there is now a requirement to include provision for the funding of secondary school pupil growth. The consultation with Head Teachers on reviewing the criteria and levels of funding resulted in minimal feedback. Therefore it was recommended that a Schools Forum Sub-group should undertake a further review;

The following additional information was provided during the discussion which followed:

(d)  Trinity Catholic School has agreed to take one additional form of entry from September 2017. This is an oversubscribed school and school places are needed in the area. Places will be allocated according to Trinity’s admissions criteria;

(e)  Nottingham University Academy of Science and Technology (NUAST) is expanding its age range to admit from Year 7 which will create much needed additional school places, and The Fernwood School  is submitting a bid to the DfE for funding to expand, which is supported by the local authority, though this is still at the application stage and has not been agreed;

(f)  The pupil growth funding for 2018/19 will cover all known and committed primary expansions, with a surplus to account for secondary expansions. Consideration also needs to be given to the fact that from 2019/20, the DfE have not confirmed how pupil growth will be funded, therefore further revisions to the criteria may be required once the DfE guidance is released;

(g)  the investment in Nottingham City primary schools to deliver the required expansion programmes has resulted in good provision of places for children at first admission, in good and outstanding schools. However, there are still challenges in providing additional capacity required in some higher year groups for in-year admissions. The Council is working with schools to find solutions to this where possible;

(h)  there are greater challenges in delivering the required city-wide secondary school capacity. However, the School Organisation Team are encouraging collaborative working with all secondary schools in the city, to consider options for delivering the additional capacity requirements, based on the principles of expanding good and outstanding schools, in areas where places are needed;

(i)  the breakdown and any changes or updates to pupil growth funding allocations will continue to be reported to the Forum as a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Lucy Juby, Project manager, School Organisation presented the Forum with an update on the Pupil Growth Contingency Fund for 2017/18, which has a remaining budget of £179,570.

The update includes a pupil growth funding allocation for the increase in capacity and pupil numbers at Trinity Catholic School. If applicable, further to review of the criteria, the remaining funding for Trinity would be payable from April 2018, and the annual amount is to be confirmed.

RESOLVED to note the update.

Joint report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults and the Director of Education

Kimberly Butler, Behaviour Support Team Leader, introduced the report seeking de-delegation for funding for the Behaviour Support Team which was deferred from the November meeting of the Forum pending further information.

Maintained primary school members thanked Kimberly for the additional information provided and said that they had received positive feedback from other head teachers across the city.

RESOLVED

(1)  for maintained mainstream primary schools to approve the de-delegation of funding for statutory services provided by the BST in 2017/18 at a rate of £55 per pupil eligible for free school meals and a lump sum of £0.003m per school. Total funding available for de-delegation by maintained mainstream primary schools is £0.227m. This is made up of £0.137m generated by pupils eligible for free school meals and £0.090m lump sum funding;

(2)  For maintained mainstream secondary schools to not approve the de-delegation of funding for statutory services provided by the BST in 2017/18 at a rate of £55 per pupil eligible for free school meals and a lump sum of £0.003m per school.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults

David Thompson, Schools Health and Safety Manager, introduced the report seeking approval from Schools Forum to allocate funding for schools health and safety building equipment inspections for maintained primary and secondary schools, which was deferred from the November Forum meeting, pending further information and options for usage of the reserve.

Maintained school members thanked David for the additional information provided, and said that they had had positive feedback from other head teachers across the city.

RESOLVED

(1)  to note the statutory and legislative health and safety responsibilities of the local authority in relation to building maintenance of maintained primary and secondary schools and the type of costs that the requested funding will be used to fund;

(2)  for maintained mainstream primary schools to approve the de-delegation of health and safety building inspection funding in 2018/19 based on a rate of £9.79 per pupil. Total estimated funding requested to be de-delegated for mainstream maintained primary schools is £0.109m;

(3)  for the maintained mainstream secondary school to approve the de-delegation of health and safety building inspection funding in 2018/19 based on a rate of £9.79 per pupil. Total estimated funding requested to be de-delegated for the mainstream maintained secondary schools is £0.013m;

(4)  for both maintained primary and secondary schools to approve the allocation of £0.257m of the health and safety buildings maintenance to cover the costs of tests and inspections from 2018/19 to 2022/23.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Jane Daffe, Senior Achievement Consultant, Vulnerable Groups, introduced the report requesting that maintained schools approve de-delegation of funding to enable proposals for the IDEAL service to secure a fully traded position from 2019/20, which was deferred from the November Forum meeting pending further information.

The report provided more information on individual school contributions, and provides a review of the core offer to maintained schools.

Maintained primary school members reported that feedback from other head teachers across the city had felt that the de-delegation does not provide best value for money. However, the service is extremely valued by schools and would better continue as a fully traded service.

RESOLVED

(1)  for maintained mainstream primary schools to not approve the de-delegation of funding for EMA at a rate of £44.56 per EAL3-funded pupil for 2018/19 to ensure that the IDEAL team has sufficient time to create programmes and products for a more fully traded service to be established;

(2)  for maintained mainstream secondary schools to approve the de-delegation of funding for EMA at a rate of £44.56 per EAL3-funded pupil for 2018/19 to ensure that the IDEAL team has sufficient time to create programmes and products for a more fully traded service to be established (£0.003m);

(3)  for members to continue to support the service as it moves to a fully traded service, including by promoting it in their relevant sectors.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults.

Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Commercial Business Partner, and Kathryn Bouchlagham, Early Years Service Manager, introduced the report highlighting the following:

(a)  revised national arrangements from April 2017 reduced the amount of Early Years funding that can be retained for central spend to 5% for 2018/19. This is to ensure a high pass-through rate of funding to providers;

(b)  the new arrangements also require all local authorities to introduce an SEN inclusion fund for children with lower level emerging needs. Early Years settings were consulted on the value and criteria for this in September 2017;

(c)  the number of early years pupils in Nottingham assessed as having reached a ‘good level of development’ has increased year on year since 2013 from 40% to 66.2%;

Some schools members reported difficulty in admitting enough children to nursery this year. This could be due to a lower birth rate in 2013, or other factors such as some private nurseries offering 30 hours free nursery provision;

RESOLVED to

(1)  approve Early Years Central Expenditure of £0.961m for 2018/19, subject to this meeting the high pass-through requirement;

(2)  note the creation of a £0.100m SEN inclusion fund within the Early Years budget for 2018/19, as required in statutory guidance for local authority early education.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Finance Business Partner, introduced the report highlighting the following:

(a)  the local authority’s intention is to implement the national funding formula with a minimum funding guarantee of up to 0.5% in the 2018/19 financial year;

(b)  under final proposals, no school will see a reduction in funding per pupil as there is a funding floor built into the national funding formula;

There was a very low response to the consultation undertaken with Nottingham City schools, but Forum members welcomed the proposals.

RESOLVED to

(1)  note the content of the proposed schools funding formula for 2018/19 and 2019/20 in the consultation document;

(2)  note the consultation responses received from Nottingham City schools and note the very low response rate.

In response to a question on further clarity about the implications of Forum not re-approving combined services budgets, Kathryn Stevenson responded that further work had been done on this and that the funding would be available to re-allocate for one year only but the following year the funding into the City would be reduced by that amount.

This is reflected in paragraph 141 of the National Funding Formula for Schools and High Needs Policy Document (September 2017): “Funding for historic commitments will be based on the actual cost of the commitment. Funding will reduce as commitments cease. There will therefore be no protection for historic commitments in the central schools services block.”

Subject to the addition of a presentation on school expansion as requested under item 4, the work programme was noted.

Forum members noted the need for clear advance notice of the Forum’s agenda as it aligns with the local authority’s agenda moving forward.