Agenda and minutes

To welcome the following new members on the Forum:

·  Tom Dick, Nottingham College, representing 16-19 education;

·  Patricia Lewis, Oak Field School, representing maintained special schools.

RESOLVED to note the appointment of the following new members on the Forum:

·  Tom Dick, Nottingham College

·  Patricia Lewis, Oak Fields School

Kerrie Henton, AP Academies

Janet Molyneux, Maintained Primary Governors

Patricia Lewis, Maintained Special Schools

Cath Rowell, Secondary Academies

David Tungate, Secondary Academies

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

None.

Draft minutes of the meeting held on 8 October 2019, for confirmation

The Forum confirmed the minutes of the meeting held on 8 October 2019 as a correct record and they were signed by the Chair.

Report of the Corporate Director for People and the Director of Education

Janine Walker, Head of SEND and Vulnerable Pupils, introduced the report and highlighted the following:

(a)  a significantly reduced de-delegation offer is proposed, along with a simplified and revised traded offer for academies. The cost to maintained primaries will be nearly halved and the guaranteed offer of support will be doubled;

(b)  the proposals result in an overall reduction of income from maintained primaries so the Behaviour Support Team (BST) will need to increase the level of buy back from academies in order to be sustainable;

(c)  continuation of the service ensures the continued availability of support to schools, R2i being embedded across all settings, and the continuation of the Intensive Support Team;

(d)  it is proposed that funding from the DSG reserve is used to substitute for the funding and income reduction from maintained primary schools for a one year period.

The following points were raised during the discussion which followed:

(e)  the BST have the capacity to offer a minimum of 12 half day sessions of support per school along with up an average of 12 additional sessions, even if every school and academy in the city were to sign up;

(f)  retaining capacity and expertise in the city is essential for the R2i model and longer term investment to bring down the high cost of exclusions;

(g)  the amount that maintained schools and academies pay for the BST is exactly the same at a cost of £5,000 per school;

(h)  use of the DSG reserve to fund the BST would not be a sustainable long term solution as reserves are not indefinite;

(i)  any reserve requirement for 2021/22 will be considered at a future date once this value is known.

RESOLVED

(1)  for maintained mainstream primary school representatives to approve the de-delegation of funding for services provided by the BST in 2020/21 at a rate of £5,000 per school;

(2)  for Schools Forum to agree to the use of £0.134m from the DSG reserve in 2020/21 to substitute for the funding and income reduction from maintained primaries.

Report of the Corporate Director for People

Kathryn Bouchlaghem, Early Years Service Manager, introduced the report requesting approval of the Early Years Central Expenditure Budget for 2020/21, highlighting the following:

(a)  the proposed figure for central expenditure is 2% higher than the amount approved in 2019/20. As funding for 3 and 4 year olds has been running under budget, it will be feasible to pass on the 8p increase to schools and providers via the base rate;

(b)  children in Nottingham generally start school below age related expectations. This year has been challenging, with poor personal, social and emotional development as well as high mobility in certain areas. Taking this into account, children make good progress from their start points;

(c)  a variety of courses are offered to both the maintained and private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector to support them to meet their statutory duties. This year there is a drive on speech, language and communication training.

RESOLVED to

(1)  approve Early Years Central Expenditure of £0.974m for 2020/21, subject to this meeting the high pass-through requirement;

(2)  note that the LA anticipates indicative 2020/21 DSG allocations for 2,3 and 4 year olds totalling £21.993m, which is £0.365m higher than the indicative allocations for 2019/20;

(3)  note that the funding received by the LA for 2,3 and 4 year olds is being increased by 8p per hour for 2020/21 and that the LA proposes to passport this in full to schools/providers through a 8p rise in the base rate.

Report of the Director of Education Services and the Corporate Director for People

Lucy Juby, Project Manager, introduced the report outlining the proposed requirements of the Pupil Growth Contingency Fund for 2020/21 and seeking approval to allocate funding for this purpose. Lucy highlighted the following:

(a)  pupil growth started to impact the secondary sector from 2017; therefore an appropriate funding model has been implemented to support this, with agreed criteria and methodology under which funding can be allocated to both primary and secondary schools;

(b)  ensuring that the supply of school places meets demand is a statutory duty of local authorities, even though they are no longer able to open new schools. Therefore, collaborative and strategic coordination and cooperation between all Nottingham City learning settings is required to meet the secondary growth between now and 2022/23, when Year 7 demand is set to peak;

(c)  in the financial year 2019-20, the DfE introduced a formulaic approach to allocating growth funding to try and ensure that it is distributed fairly and evenly.

RESOLVED to

(1)  approve the allocation of £1.394m to support pupil growth in 2020/21;

(2)  note:

(a)  the requirement to allocate funding to activities for the period April 2020 to August 2020 as guided by the ESFA; but which will be reimbursed to the LA’s Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG);

(b) the amount to be allocated (and reimbursed) is £0.327m;

(c)  the total amount of academies individual school budget shares will be netted off against the pupil growth given out for this period and the Authority’s Dedicated Schools Grant for 2020/21 will be adjusted accordingly;

(3)  approve the allocation of any unallocated DSG funding in the Schools Block which cannot be passed onto schools due to the national funding formula guidelines in 2020/21 to the pupil growth contingency fund.

Julia Holmes, Senior Commercial Business Partner, informed the Forum of key changes to the National Funding Formula (NFF) in 2020/21 and the impact that they will have on schools projected budgets, highlighting the following:

(a)  the minimum per pupil levels have been 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 is also going to be an increase of 4% to the formula core factors, except for the Free School Meals factor which will be increased at inflation;

(b)  the funding floor will be set at 1.84% to protect pupil-led per pupil funding in real terms. The majority of Nottingham City schools are in receipt of transitional protection so in effect the majority of schools will only see an increase of 1.84% in their funding compared to 2019/20;

(c)  the LA is proposing a minimum funding guarantee which will be set as close to +1.84% per pupil as possible to try and pass onto schools as much funding as possible. This is the maximum that could be applied. The gains cap has been removed from the NFF, so the LA is proposing to remove this in the local funding formula too, resulting in a funding increase of over 1.84% for 11 schools who are solely funded on the NFF;

(d)  schools will be consulted on these proposals on 4 December 2019, with a closing date of 20 December. The consultation will include an executive summary of proposals for easy digestion. Schools Forum will be notified of the outcome on 21 January 2020.

RESOLVED to agree to provide feedback to the proposed changes to the local funding formula in 2020/21 as part of the full consultation with all schools.

Ceri Walters, Head of Commercial Finance, introduced the report which was circulated to the Forum as a supplement to the agenda entitled ‘Schools Funding Reduction – Historic Commitments’, regarding a 20% reduction in historic commitment allocations from the ESFA with protection in place to ensure no authority exceeded a reduction equivalent to more than 0.5% of its 2019/20 schools allocation.

Judith Kemplay, Chair of the Forum, explained the requirement to use one off funding for 2020/21 only, to support this reduction in the DSG and ensure that budget deadlines are achieved. Risks surrounding the DSG have been reduced given the recent increase in funding of both the Schools and High Needs blocks.

The establishment of a further Schools Forum Sub-Group (SSFG) is proposed in order to conduct a detailed review of the historic commitments spend for the future.

RESOLVED to

(1)  note the reduction in DSG funding of £1.060m for 2020/21 as set out in the report;

(2)  approve the funding option for 2020/21, in conjunction with the ESFA guidance statement as set out in the report;

(3)  note the impact this will have on 2021/22 onwards and the suggested approach for 2021/22 and the requirement to establish a further SFSG to support this approach;

(4)  approve members of the additional SFSG, as below:

The Work Programme was noted.

All on Tuesdays at 1.45pm at Loxley House:

21 January 2020

25 February 2020

28 April 2020

23 June 2020

The Forum noted the remaining meetings of the 2019/20 academic year on the following Tuesdays at Loxley House:

21 January 2020

25 February 2020

28 April 2020

23 June 2020