Agenda item

Report of Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Ceri Walters, Finance Business Partner, Children and Adults, introduced her report detailing the Statutory Schools Reserve (SSR) and Schools Reserve balances for 2014/15 and the commitments aligned to the SSR which will enable future funding decisions presented to the Forum.

Some members of the Forum met in advance of the meeting and produced the following list of queries which the Chair suggested should be responded to in writing:

·  the report only details available balances in the reserve but the Forum requires a full breakdown of how all centrally held funds were spent during 2013/14 and where underspends/overspends occurred to build up the reserve figure during April 2013 to March 2014;

·  details of what the reserve figure was at 31 March 2013 and what spend occurred from the reserve during the year to leave an amount of £12.781 million at 31 March 2014;

·  the risks identified highlight a need to commit up to £1.128 million for de-delegated services but in agenda item 7 funds of £2.463 million have been allocated for de-delegation. Does the local authority believe over 46% of schools will convert during the current financial year? The figure seems excessive;

·  what risk assessment was undertaken to calculate the deficit balance figures for academy conversion? Again the figure seems excessive so details need to be provided on the total figure of school deficits at 31 March 2014 and a projected deficit figure for the current financial year;

·  has Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) been extended to include vulnerable adults up to the age of 25? If not, why is the local authority committing additional funding from DSG? Previous DSG was calculated for up to 16 year olds and Special Education Needs for up to 19 years old so no historic DSG should be used to fund additional local authority costs due to the change in the Children and Families Act for up to 25 year olds;

·  in table 3 £0.825 million is attributed to Nottingham City Secondary Education Partnership (NCSEP). If it has been allocated to NCSEP why hasn’t it been received? A full breakdown needs to be provided as previously £0.595 million was committed so it’s not clear what the remaining £0.230 million is for;

·  also in table 3 it appears that the Behaviour Support Team has been underwritten for a further period so it needs to be confirmed whether academies also benefit from the underwrite;

·  confirmation that the money detailed in table 3 for School Improvement was agreed for 2014/15;

·  confirmation when NCSEP will receive the secondary unspent recouped funds detailed in table 3 as NCSEP hasn’t received the funds due from March 2013.

The following comments were made during the discussion:

(a)  the funding for late admissions to schools (after the October pupil census) has been allocated directly to academies and added to the budgets for maintained school;

(b)  the figures in table 2 relating to risks are just estimates of what may be needed. They are to ensure that the reserve is adequate to meet the risks;

(c)  risks are reviewed every year using a risk matrix;

(d)  more information needs to be given in future reports to ensure that members can make informed decisions;

(e)  the SSR commitments being rolled forward from 2013/14 to 2014/15 are already included in the budget so have no impact on the balance and the money allocated to each commitment can be moved to another commitment at a later date if it is no longer needed;

(f)  there continues to be a high number of children moving into the City throughout the year which results in late admissions putting financial pressure on schools until further budget is allocated in the 2015/16 budget. Planned expansions are in progress but the effect of migration means adhoc expansions are also required.

RESOLVED to

(1)  note the value of the School Reserves at 1 April 2014 as follows:

(2)  approve the use of the reserve, if required, to mitigate the following risks:

(3)  approve the balance of £4.462 million SSR commitments being brought forward from 2013/14 to 2014/15, with the specific allocations detailed in Table 3 of the report being reviewed at the September 2014 meeting;

(4)  approve the use of the SSR to support late admissions in 2014/15 totalling £0.290 million.