Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED to

(1)  appoint Judith Kemplay as Chair for the 2019/20 Academic Year;

(2)  appoint Derek Hobbs as Vice-Chair for the 2019/20 Academic Year.

Paul Burke, Secondary Academies

Sean Kelly, Special Academies

Councillor Neghat Khan, Portfolio Holder for Early Years, Education & Skills

None.

Minutes of the meeting held on 25 June 2019, for confirmation

Subject to the addition of Nick Lee’s attendance, the Forum confirmed the minutes of the meeting held on 25 June 2019 as a correct record and they were signed by the Chair.

To note the membership for the 2019/20 Academic Year, and the appointment of Paul Burke as a new Secondary Academy representative member

Phil Wye, Clerk to the Forum, informed the Forum members that there are currently four vacancies and attempts will be made to recruit to these in time for the next meeting.

RESOLVED to note the membership for the 2019/20 Academic Year and to welcome Paul Burke as a new Secondary Academy representative.

Verbal update

Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Commercial Business Partner, provided an update following changes to the National Funding Formula as outlined in new guidance from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (EFA);

(a)  the government has announced that the schools budget will rise by £2.6bn in 2020/21, £4.8bn in 2021/22 and £7.1bn in 2022/23, compared to 2019/20 funding levels. The settlement also provides over £700m more to support children with special educational needs, and an increase to early years spending of £66m;

(b)  the detail on how individual Local Authorities (LAs) and schools will be affected will be released in early October 2019. This will take the form of illustrative provisional allocations at LA level for the schools and high needs blocks, as well as notional school level allocations;

(c)  there is going to be an increase of 4% to the formula core factors. The exceptions are the free school meals factor which will instead be increased at inflation, and the premises funding which will continue to be allocated at LA level;

(d)  the funding floor will be set at 1.84%, to protect pupil-led per pupil funding in real terms. This minimum increase in 2021/22 will be based on the individual schools’ allocation in 2019/20. As the majority of Nottingham City schools are already in receipt of transitional protection, the majority will only see an increase of 1.84% in their funding;

(e)  the minimum per pupil funding will be set at £3,750 for primary schools and £5,000 for secondary schools. The primary level will rise to £4,000 in 2021/22. There will be no gains cap, so that all schools attract their full allocations under the formula. LAs will be able to use a cap in their local funding formulae. There will be a new formulaic approach to the mobility factor rather than basing it on historic spend;

(f)  growth funding will be based on the same methodology as last year, and will have the same transitional protection ensuring that no LA will lose more than 0.5% of its 2019/20 schools block allocation;

(g)  the teachers’ pay grant and teachers’ pension employer contributions grant will both continue to be paid separately from the National Funding Formula in 2020/21. The ESFA will publish the rates that determine the 2020/21 allocations in due course;

(h)  for high needs the funding floor will be set at 8%, based on LAs’ high needs allocations in 2019/20, including the additional £125m announced in December 2018. There will be a gains cap of 17%, allowing LAs to see up to this percentage increase under the formula;

(i)  Nottingham City should see an increase in high needs funding of at least £2.5m, but hopefully more if over 8%. This would enable them to meet existing high needs pressures and help address the strategic priorities outlined in the 2018-23 SEND strategy;

(j)  For the schools block the LA will consult with all schools and Schools Forum in December 2019 on the proposed changes to the National Funding Formula, with the result of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Verbal update

Kathryn Stevenson, Senior Commercial Business Partner, and Janine Walker, Head of SEND, provided an update on draft proposals for planned high needs places for the 2020/21 academic year:

(a)  the LA must submit place change notifications relating to academies and FE colleges to the EFA in November 2019. It is also working with maintained settings on place numbers;

(b)  required place number changes are identified by looking at current numbers on roll, known leavers in July 2020, anticipated new admissions, and limits to physical capacity. Any proposed changes are agreed with the institution involved;

(c)  in the 2019/20 academic year, 5 additional places were implemented. An expansion of Nethergate is going ahead with an initial 8 extra places from September for Autistic Spectrum Disorder pupils, and 4 extra places were agreed with both Rosehill and Woodlands from September;

(d)  for the 2020/21 academic year Nethergate will admit a further 8 ASD pupils. In addition, up to 26 additional places will be required. Further work and detailed discussions with special schools will take place to determine the planned numbers for each school;

(e)  the proposed additional places from September 2020 will have a financial impact of around £400,000 in financial year 2020/21, with an additional £300,000 impact from 2021/22 onwards.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Trevor Bone, Property Maintenance Manager, introduced the report updating the Forum on the statutory and legislative responsibilities of the LA in relation to maintenance and testing of maintained school properties and how the funding requested to be de-delegated is used to support this.

Last financial year, Schools Forum agreed in principle to the use of the maintained schools’ health and safety buildings maintenance reserve, and to delegate funding for the financial year 2020/21 to fund the costs of maintained schools health and safety tests up until 2022/23.

RESOLVED to

(1)  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 2020/21 based on a rate of £6.61 per pupil. Total estimated funding to be de-delegated in 2020/21 for mainstream maintained primary schools is £73,000.

Report of the Director of Human Resources and Transformation

Ana Maru, Employee Relations Specialist, presented the report outlining the proposed funding arrangements for Trade Union facility time for senior trade union representatives from schools to attend negotiation and consultation meetings and to represent their members in schools from 1 April 2020/21.

RESOLVED for maintained mainstream primary schools to approve the de-delegation of funding for senior trade union  representatives at a rate of £1.04 per pupil and a lump sum of £1,054 per school. Total funding requested to be de-delegated by maintained mainstream primary schools is £0.042m. This is made up of £0.011m generated by pupil numbers and £0.031m lump sum funding.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults and the Chief Finance Officer

Analysis of attainment data for Children in Care to follow.

Ceri Walters, Head of Commercial Finance, introduced the report setting out the recommendations of the Schools Forum Sub-Group on specific items of expenditure for inclusion in the 2020/21 budget setting process. The Sub-Group met on 25 September 2019 and were content to accept the proposals put forward by the LA on the funding of historic commitments for the financial year 2020/21.

Judith Kemplay, Chair, went through appendices C-F of the report which go into further detail on the combined budget contributions and their impact on Nottingham City pupils. These were closely scrutinised by the Sub-Group.

RESOLVED to

(1)  approve in principle the historic commitments set out below, totalling £6.570m, noting the additional historic detail set out in the report:

Terry Smith (maintained primary schools) wished for his abstention on the vote to be recorded.

(2)  note that the Schools Forum Sub-Group were in agreement to recommend the Schools Forum the approval of the historic commitments;

(3)  note that if historic commitments are less than anticipated the funding of these commitments will be amended in the budget report in January 2020.

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults and the Chief Finance Officer

Ceri Walters, Head of Commercial Finance, introduced the report setting out the recommendations of the Schools Forum Sub-Group on specific items of expenditure for inclusion in the 2020/21/budget setting process. The Sub-Group met on 25 September 2019 and were content to accept the proposals put forward by the LA.

RESOLVED to

(1)  Approve the ongoing commitments budgets set out below totalling £1.475m, noting the additional historical detail set out in the report:

(2)  note that the Schools Forum Sub-Group were in agreement to recommend to Schools Forum the approval of the on-going commitments;

(3)  note that the cost of Copyright Licenses totalling £0.215m does not require approval as the licenses are managed and procured by central government;

(4)  note that where values are based on estimated pupil numbers, this report has used the latest October 2018 census however, once the October 2019 census and final allocations are issued from the DfE these figures will be updated and represented in the final budget report.

·  Tuesday 3 December 2019 at 1:45pm

·  Tuesday 28 January 2020 at 1:45pm

·  Tuesday 25 February 2020 1:45pm

·  Tuesday 28 April 2020 1:45pm

·  Tuesday 23 June 2020 1:45pm

The Clerk to the Forum informed the membership of the following future dates, all at 1.45pm at Loxley House. The January meeting will be held on 21 January, not 28 January as stated in the agenda papers:

·  Tuesday 3 December

·  Tuesday 21 January

·  Tuesday 25 February

·  Tuesday 28 April

·  Tuesday 23 June