Agenda and minutes

As the Chair (Kerrie Fox) had previously sent her apologies for the meeting, and the Vice-Chair was experiencing technical issues, the Forum agreed to appoint Judith Kemplay as Chair for this meeting.

Kerrie Fox

Debbie Simon

None.

Last meeting held on 06 December 2022 (for confirmation)

The Forum agreed the minutes of the last meeting held on 06 December 2022 as a correct record and they were signed by the Chair presiding at the meeting.

Joint report of Corporate Directors for People and Finance and Resources

Kathryn Stevenson and Julia Holmes (Senior Commercial Business Partners) presented the report, and stated the following:

a)  the report detailed the proposed Schools Budget for the financial year 2023/24, prepared in line with parameters agreed at a meeting of Schools Forum, and with the financial regulations issued by the Department for Education;

b)  as outlined in a report to 06 December 2022 Schools Forum meeting, for 2023/24, the LA has moved away from the standard approach of setting a Schools budget that balances the budgets by block to the Dedicated Schools Grant income received;

c)  this report incorporated further proposals in relation to the Early Years block, extending this approach in response to equivalent pressures in that sector;

d)  indicative individual school budgets, Early Years and High Needs funding allocations, along with guidance notes, would be issued by 28 February 2023.

e)  where applicable, the Local Authority’s Medium Term Financial Plan incorporated the impact from the Dedicated Schools Grant.

During discussion, members requested that their thanks to Kathryn and Julia, for the work done in respect of the Schools Budget, be recorded.

Resolved to note:

(1)  in respect of Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG):

(a)  the overall indicative 2023/24 Schools Budget to be spent incorporating the Schools, Central Schools Services (CSS), Early Years (EY) and Higher Needs (HN) blocks was £344.944m, funded by:

(i)  £342.836m of the provisional 2023/24 DSG allocation of £344.819m;

(ii)  reimbursement of £0.447m funding paid to academies for pupil growth for April to August 2023;

(iii)  £1.438m from DSG reserves to support the additional one-off distribution to mainstream schools, from the balance earmarked for distribution in conjunction with the SF sub-group;

(iv)  £0.148m from DSG reserves to support the 2023/24 SEN Inclusion Fund budget, from the balance earmarked for EY/EY Disability Access Funding;

(v)  £0.075m from DSG reserves to support a higher 2-year-old Base Rate for 2023/24, from the balance earmarked for EY;

(b)  that the budget would be updated in-year to reflect subsequent adjustments made by the ESFA to the 2023/24 DSG allocation, as detailed in the report;

(c)  that any balance remaining would be allocated to the Statutory School Reserve (SSR), which included a £1.983m balance of the provisional DSG allocation, representing a proportion of the additional HN funding announced in the Autumn Statement, and, if any new HN budget requirements arise in-year, over and above those planned from the HN budget outlined in the report, then separate in-year approvalwould be sought;

(d)  that the impact to schools’ budgets of the indicative allocation was set out in Table 5 of the report;

(2)  in respect of Mainstream Schools Additional Grant (MSAG), that additional funding for mainstream schools of £8.725m, announced in the Autumn Statement 2022, was being provided as a separate grant for 2023/24 outside of the schools national funding formula and would be allocated in accordance with the grant conditions (as detailed in paragraph 2.9.1 of the report);

(3)  in respect of Additional one-off DSG distribution to mainstream schools, that the budget  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25.

Joint report of Corporate Director for People and Director of Education Services

Trevor Bone, Head of Building Services and Facilities Management, presented the report, and stated the following:

a)  thepurposeof the report was to update Schools Forum onthe statutory and legislative health and safetyresponsibilities of theLocal Authority in relationto maintenance and testingof maintained school properties, and howthe funding being requested to bede-delegated was usedto support this;

b)  Schools Forum agreed at its meeting on 8 October 2019 the de-delegation of £6.61 for the financial year 2020/21 and that this funding, along with the outstanding balance on the health and safety tests and inspections reserve (£0.228m), was to be used to fund the costs of tests and inspections in the financial years 2020/21 to 2022/23;

c)  at that meeting, maintained schools expressed a preference to be able to organise their own health and safety tests and inspections once the five-year cycle had come to an end;

d)  during discussions between Pat and Sarah Fielding (Nottingham Schools Trust) and Nicholas Lee (Director of Education Services) and David Thompson (Schools Health and Safety Manager), it was agreed that a report asking maintained primary schools if they would like to approve the de-delegation of funding for health and safety tests and inspections for the financial year 2023/24 be submitted to this meeting;

e)  the local authority is required to seek approval on an annual basis in accordance with the ‘Schools and Early Years Finance Regulations 2022’.

Resolved that

(1)  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 would be used to fund, as detailed in paragraph 1.2 of the report, be noted;

(2)  maintained mainstream primary schools’ members approved:

(a)  de-delegation of health and safety building inspection funding for 2023/24 of an estimated £0.082m for mainstream maintained primary schools, based on a rate of £7.40 per pupil;

(b)  use of the forecast balance of £0.014m at the end of the financial year 2022/23 from the health and safety tests and inspections reserve to offset the costs of tests and inspections in the financial year 2023/24.

To note that the next meeting will be held remotely via Zoom, livestreamed on YouTube, at 1.45pm on Tuesday 28 February 2023

It was noted that the next meeting will be held remotely via Zoom, and livestreamed on YouTube, at 1.45pm on Tuesday 28 February 2023.