Meeting documents

Apologies were received from :

John Bajina (Parent Governor Representative)

Karen Duckworth (Associate Member)

David Hood (Associate Member)

Simon Kearey (Parent Governor Representative)

Andy Gillespie (Associate Member)

Angela Coneron (Parent Governor Representative) – Chris Stephenson attending in her place.

Janice Freeman – Gareth Drawmer attended as substitute

During discussions declarations of interest were made as follows:

Ms W Terry; Buckinghamshire Learning Trust

Members noted there were no primary academy representation on the Forum and this needed to be reviewed.

ACTION: Mr Huskinson

29 November 2016 to be agreed by the Forum

The minutes of the meeting held on 29 November were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The following updates were noted:

Ø  Minutes of last meeting (page 4) – date needed to be added

Ø  SEND Governance (Page 7) – Mr N Wilson updated the Forum that a Programme Director and Manager were now in place and finances had been secured

Ø  Growth Fund (Start-up) (Page 9) – It was confirmed that Mr K Patrick, Mr M Moore and Mrs K Tamlyn agreed to represent the Schools Forum.  Mr J Carter to arrange meeting dates

ACTION: Mr Carter

‘Fair Funding’ letter (Page 10) – Mr Rowe confirmed a letter had not  yet been sent to the Secretary of State as there was an opportunity to feedback as part of the consultation process.

Mr J Huskinson to present the School Funding 2017/18 report.  The Forum are asked to agree the recommendations in the report.

Members of the Forum will be expected to vote on sections L&M of the report, Existing and New De-delegations.  They will be asked to agree to the recommendations in principle, but time spent after the Forum on due diligence.

Mr Huskinson presented the report on DSG 2017/18.  The report set out recommendations for the Schools Forum to agree. 

The report was discussed section by section with key points being highlighted as follows:

Sections A and B background and purpose for the report

Ø  DSG Funding was a Cabinet Member decision but had been delegated to officers (Mr D Johnston)

Section C – Overall Settlement

Ø  Section C outlined the settlement of £412m. High Needs (HNs) funding £1.9m extra funding and had received £5m extra in DSG for growth in pupils

Ø  The £6m gap had been balanced as below:

o   £1.5 HNs funding, £1m HNs saving, £1m DSG headroom, £2m given back from Early Years and £1.5m capping

Section D – Other funding

Ø  Mr Huskinson outlined other announcements that had been made and additional funding that could be bid for

Section E – Education Services Grant (ESG)

Recommendation 1: That the School Forum notes the implications of the ESG proposals and agrees the allocation of the £1.178m ESG retained duties funding to the Authority.

Ø  Mr Huskinson confirmed that the County Council were using council tax funding to relieve some of the pressure

RESOLVED: All Members (17 present) of the Forum were asked to vote on the recommendation:

Section F – National Funding Formulae and High Needs Funding

Recommendation 2 - The School Forum considers the consultation and provides a collective response to the F40 group (notwithstanding Schools and stakeholders may wish to provide individual or other collective responses)

Ø  Forum members discussed and disagreed with the view in the report that the outcome for Buckinghamshire schools was a positive one.  It was noted that not all schools would see this as positive and particularly those higher in deprivation would be negatively affected

Ø  Mr Wilson confirmed that compared to other Counties it was seen as good with 85% of schools gaining

RESOLVED: Since the meeting it had been agreed that a more productive forum debate could be had with some evidence and analysis of the views of the wider schools community, following a consultation exercise led by the officers and promoted at various other stakeholder meetings.  The response from Bucks would be agreed at the next Forum on 21 March 2017.

ACTION: Mr J Huskinson

Section G – School Funding Formulae 2017/18

Recommendation 3 - The School Funding Formulae agreed in 2016/17 are unchanged but that capping of gains is set at 0.5% (per scenario 2)

Ø  Mrs Huskinson highlighted the need to find £0.5m and suggested that if scenario 2 was chosen, to  use the current funding but reduce capping to 0.5%

 RESOLVED: All Members (17 present) of the Forum were asked to vote on the recommendation:

Section H – Historic Commitments (Wendy Terry declared an interest when discussing BLT)

Recommendation 4 - The Schools Forum agrees the full use of the historical commitments proposed.

Ø  The Forum agreed to maintain funding wherever possible  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

School Funding 2017/18 Cabinet Member Decision covering report for information only

A copy of the Cabinet Member decision report was attached for information only.

Mrs J Nicholls to present report on Early Years funding

Mrs J Nicholls presented a report to the group which outlined the government’s allocations for Early Years funding. 

The report outlined the feedback from the consultation carried out with the sector in December 2016 which included a series of meetings in the summer term and an online survey.

The final allocation had not changed with the exception of the additional allocation for maintained nursery schools (MNS) which had decreased by £40,125k (18.8%).

The report set out a number of recommendations for Schools Forum members to consider and vote on.

Deprivation Supplement – Mandatory and optional supplements

Ø  A high number of providers (78%) agreed that £623k allocated to deprivation was about right

Ø  72% of providers agreed to Model 2 for deprivation which reduced the overall budget, but  all providers would receive  some allocation

Ø  It was confirmed that an Impact Assessment had been completed and it showed that if model 2 wa adopted some providers would be worse off next year. Mr Wilson confirmed that there would be work to mitigate against the impact of reductions.  Schools Forum requested to see the Impact Assessment previously referred to

ACTION: Mrs Nicholls

Ø  The Forum commented some of the schools affected the most were those that attract some of our most vulnerable children.  The Forum did discuss the option of looking at other models, but noted that this would only then have a negative impact on other areas of the sector

Ø  Mr Huskinson confirmed that although budgets need to be set for March, a decision on this would be required now in order for discussions to start with providers.  He confirmed that further modelling will be taken to the Early Years Forum on 30 January 2017and the final decision on the model by taken by Mr Z Mohammed.  An update will come back to Schools Forum in March. 

ACTION: Mrs Nicholls/Mr Huskinson

Recommendation: Adopt model 2 and agree no optional supplements. 

RESOLVED: All Members of the Forum agreed the recommendation with the comments above taken into consideration.

Maintained Nursery Schools (MNS)

Ø  All providers would be on the same base hourly rate  no later than 2019/20 which was in line with the rest of the sector

Ø  It was noted that there was currently lots of investment needed in this area and the cuts would present a real challenge

Recommendation: MNSs receive a lump sum of £55k per school per year and £30k for Mapledean annexe. MNS 3 & 4 year olds are funded at the base hourly rate of £4.55.

RESOLVED: All Members of the Forum agreed the recommendation.

High Needs (HN) Funding – Inclusion Fund

Ø  Mrs Nicholls confirmed that there was a requirement to set up an inclusion fund from the Early Years block or HN block

Ø  The recommendation set out to fund from early years block in same budget envelop with a slight increase to allow for children to attend for longer –there will be a slight LAG on the pressure on the funding stream

Recommendation:  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Dis-applications – Approved in principle but needs the Forum to agree each year.

RESOLVED: All Members of the Forum agreed the recommendation.

31 January 2017, Darke Hall, The Coach House, Green Park, Aston Clinton

Since the meeting in January it has been agreed that the date of the next meeting is 21 March 2017 and a new start time of 1.30pm was agreed.

ACTION: Ms Bennett