Agenda and minutes

Maria Artingstoll

Caroline Caille

Stephen McLaren

Patricia Vladev

Sheena Wheatley

None.

Minutes of the meeting held on 9 October 2018, for confirmation

The minutes of the meeting held on 9 October 2018 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Phil Wye, Clerk to the Schools Forum, introduced the report outlining changes to the membership and constitution in light of a change in the balance between the number of pupils on roll at academies and maintained schools in the city.

Sally Coulton from Ellis Guilford Academy was appointed as a Secondary Academy representative but has subsequently resigned as a Head Teacher and so a new representative will be sought.

The report states that there is one primary academy conversion planned, but this is no longer going ahead meaning that there are now no conversions planned.

RESOLVED to

(1)  note the new numbers of school representatives from maintained mainstream schools and mainstream academies and free schools in each sector;

(2)  note the appointment of Robert White from NUAST and Cath Rowell from Bluecoat Aspley Academy as new Secondary Academy and Free School representatives;

(3)  note the appointment of Patricia Vladev from Stanstead Primary School as a new Primary Academy representative;

(4)  note that there were no nominations for a Special Academy representative and this remains a vacancy on the Forum;

(5)  note that the Maintained Primary representatives will remain on the Forum until their terms of office are over or if a vacancy arises.

Report of the Director of Education Services

Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Commercial Business Partner, introduced the report outlining a proposal for the distribution of a Disability Access Funding (DAF) underspend from 2017/18., highlighting the following:

(a)  the council’s DAF allocation for 2017/18 was £90,000 which equated to an estimated 146 pupils. However, schools and providers only claimed DAF for 24 pupils meaning that there was a significant underspend;

(b)  the DfE has recognised that authorities may have more DAF funding than they paid out to providers and have stated that they expect this to be spent on services in line with the principles and aims of the DAF;

(c)  the council is proposing to distribute the underspend on a per-head basis for pupils accessing the universal entitlement that qualify for High Level Needs (HLN) top-up funding in the Autumn term 2018. This would allow schools and providers to make reasonable adjustments that enable children with SEND to access their early years entitlement;

(d)  the council is taking a number of steps to increase the uptake of DAF funding in 2018/19, developing  a strategy of engagement with all settings. Therefore there is unlikely to be a repeat of the DAF underspend;

(e)  an underspend of the SEN Inclusion Fund is anticipated for 2018/19 because there are significantly lower numbers of pupils accessing this compared to the estimate. It is proposed that this underspend be ring-fenced for a similar additional allocation per HLN pupil;

(f)  a consultation of all settings would be carried out for the 2018/19 SEN Inclusion Fund proposal asking for views on this both as a one-off arrangement and an ongoing one, should the demand on the SEN Inclusion Fund be consistently lower than originally estimated.

RESOLVED to

(1)  approve the proposed distribution of the £0.075m 2017/18 Early Years Disability Access Funding (DAF) underspend as outlined in the report;

(2)  approve the proposal to ring-fence any underspend in the SEN Inclusion Fund for 2018/19 in order to replicate this is 2019/20.

Report of the Director of Education Services

Lucy Juby, Project Manager, School Organisation, introduced the report outlining the proposed requirements of the Pupil Growth Contingency Fund (PGCF) for 2019/20, which will be used to fund pupil growth in both maintained schools and academies, highlighting the following:

(a)  for 2019/20, the known requirements that are already committed or projected for the pupil growth fund total £0.742m. A further £0.265m has been set aside to allow for contingency to support any other schools accommodating additional pupils;

(b)  the growth in birth rate and new arrivals to the city as well as new housing developments have resulted in a significant increase in demand, which is now moving from the primary to the secondary phase. Within the secondary phase, some additional capacity has already been negotiated but further solutions are still required;

(c)  the council aims to maximise the number of pupils securing their preferred school. For September 2018 secondary school admissions, nearly 89% of pupils were offered their first or second choice school, however this is a reduction from 92% in 2016.

Forum members questioned why the funding criteria for secondary school expansions funded an additional teacher at M6 level, whilst primary schools are only funded for a teacher at M3 level.

RESOLVED to

(1)  approve the allocation of £1.265m to support pupil growth in 2019/02;

(2)  agree in principle to alter the funding criteria for primary school pupil growth so that it covers the cost of an M6 teacher as it does with secondary pupil growth;

(3)  note the requirement to allocate funding to academies for the period April 2019 to August 2019 as guided by the EFSA; but which will be reimbursed to the LA’s Dedicated Schools Grant;

(4)  note the amount to be allocated (and reimbursed) is £0.258m;

(5)  note the total amount of academies individual school budget shares will be netted off against the pupil growth given out for this period and the LA’s Dedicated Schools Grant for 2019/20 will be adjusted accordingly.

Kathryn Stevenson introduced the report presenting the proposed Schools Budget for 2019/20, which has been prepared in line with the parameters agreed at Schools Forum and with the financial regulations issued by the Department for Education (DfE), highlighting the following:

(a)  the Schools Block has seen an increase due to increased pupil numbers and the High Needs Block has seen an increase due to the new High Needs national funding formula and additional funding announced by the DfE in December. The Early Years and Central Schools Services blocks have remained largely the same;

(b)  with additional use of reserves to support High Needs costs and funding for specific purposes, the total schools budget totals £274.956m;

(c)  a minimum funding guarantee of +0.5% has been applied to schools budgets in 2019/20;

(d)  there is a surplus balance in the Schools Block of £1.066m, due to no longer needing to fund Nottingham Free School as a growing school and the split of Bluecoat Aspley and Bluecoat Wollaton Academies;

(e)  because the Minimum Funding Guarantee can only be set between -1.5% to +0.5%, the surplus balance cannot be passed onto all schools as the minimum funding guarantee percentage has already been set at the maximum. Therefore a Schools Block Transfer of 0.5% to the High Needs block is proposed which equates to £1.059m, as well as allocating the remaining £0.007m to the Pupil Growth Fund;

(f)  the Schools Budget will be formally approved by the full city council in February, following which draft budgets will be issued to schools.

RESOLVED to

(1)  note the overall indicative 2019/20 Schools Budget to be spent incorporating the Schools, Central Schools Services, Early Years and High Needs blocks is £274.956m;

(2)  note this is funded by the provisional 2019/20 Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) allocation of £274.399m plus £0.558m from the DSG reserve and other grants;

(3)  note that the budget will be updated in year to reflect subsequent adjustments made by the ESFA to the 2019/20 DSG allocation as described in the report;

(4)  note that any balance remaining will be allocated to the Statutory Schools Reserve;

(5)  to note the impact to schools’ budgets of the indicative allocation as set out in the report;

(6)  approve a Schools Block transfer of £1.059m for 2019/20 to the High Needs Block. This represents 0.5% of the Local Authority’s Schools Block for 2019/20;

(7)  approve the allocation of the remaining balance on the Schools Block of £0.007m in the financial year 2019/20 to the pupil growth fund.

The work programme was noted and it was agreed to cancel the meeting scheduled for February due to lack of business.