Agenda item

Report of Finance Business Partner, Children and Families

Ceri Walters, Finance Business Partner, Children and Families Finance Support Team, introduced her report updating Forum on the 2014/15 budget position and seeking approvals to progress with the 2014/15 budget development.

She provided the following additional information in response to questions and comments from the Forum:

(a)  the figures in Appendix A for 2013/14 are subject to review and the close down report will contain the exact figures;

(b)  quarterly monitoring reports will be introduced in the future to keep the Forum up to date and help enable accurate forecasting;

(c)  the Prior Attainment Factor rate will be reviewed and altered as necessary;

(d)  the budget confirmation for Pupil Referral Units will be later than the confirmation for schools because of waiting for confirmation of the High Needs funding from the Department for Education (DfE).

RESOLVED to

(1)  note:

(a)   the latest position of the 2014/15 Dedicated School Grant (DSG) budget setting process that the initial DSG budget allocation for Nottingham for 2014/15 is £228.310 million before academy recoupment which assumes:

·  an increase in learning places for two year olds extending the statutory entitlement to 40% of lower income households nationally. The DfE have estimated that Nottingham will have 2,700 qualifying for a place with funding representing and 80% take up;

·  a flat cash rate per pupil;

·  removal of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme.

During the next 2 months the figure will be updated by the DfE using the High Needs and Hospital Education census data recently submitted;

(b)  the latest position of the Pupil Premium (PP) settlement that the allocation will be based on January 2014 census data using an increased rate. PP is allocated based on the number of pupils who have been eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) in the last 6 years and an update will be provided when the final PP allocation has been received incorporating the impact of FSM for all Years 1 and 2;

(2)  approve the de-delegation of the Building Maintenance budgets:

(3)  approve the following Schools and Early Years Central Expenditure:

(4)  endorse the realignment of the secondary school Prior Attainment Factors, as detailed in paragraph 5.4 of the report, and note the impact this has on individual school budgets:

(5)  agree to establish a Schools Forum sub-group in 2014 to review the budget factors, and agree that a separate report will be presented to the Forum before the end of the Summer term outlining the requirements of the group and asking for members.