Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Julian Dutnall, Bill Edgar, Simon London, Gary Pocock, Wayne Chretian, Bernard Gilley, John McKernan, Maria Thompson and Keith Passingham. Ian Hogg was substituting for Gary Pocock.

To approve as correct the notes of the meeting held on 21^st January 2016 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 21 January 2016 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

There were no matters arising that were not dealt with elsewhere on the agenda.

Report attached.

DA advised the Forum that schools had received their funding allocations for the financial year 2016-17 and academies had received their funding statements from the EFA for the financial year commencing September 2016 based on the LA’s formula.

There had been no changes in the values applied to the funding factors in 2015-16 with the exception of IDACI (Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index).

There had also been a slight increase from 0.91% to 1% to the cap applied to schools whose funding would otherwise be higher.

£1.3m had been transferred from the Schools Block to the High Needs Block and £0.1m had been transferred from the Early Years Block to the High Needs Block.

The final position against the previous financial year including the number of schools that had either a gains cap applied or a MFG protection of -1.5% was as follows:

Analysis of MFG

Analysis of Gains Cap

The Forum had been advised that the hourly rates for roviders of early years education remained unchanged from the previous year at £3.56 for private and voluntary settings and £4.10 for maintained and independent settings.

Top up (element 3) funding for special schools through the matrix of special need remained unchanged from the previous year.

Top up (element 3) funding for the pupil referral service had been reduced from £10,000 to £9,000 to reflect the increase in the place led funding from £8,000 to £10,000 with effect from 1^st September 2016.

The Forum had noted the final schools funding allocations for financial year 2016-17 and placed on record their appreciation of the hard work put in by DA and his team in resolving the budgets, this year being the earliest they had actually received notification.

Report attached.

DA had informed the Forum that each local authority was required to have in place a scheme for funding schools. This scheme set out the financial relationship between the London Borough of Havering and the maintained schools which it funded. It contained requirements for financial management and related issues, which were binding on both Havering Local Authority and on schools.

The scheme followed closely the statutory guidance from the Department for Education for local authorities in constructing their schemes.

The Regulations stated that schemes must deal with the following matters:

1.    The carrying forward from one funding period to another of surpluses and deficits arising in relation to schools’ budget shares.

2.    Amounts which might be charged against schools’ budget shares.

3.    Amounts received by schools which might be retained by their governing bodies and the purposes for which such amounts might be used.

4.    The imposition, by or under the scheme, of conditions which must be complied with by schools in relation to the management of their delegated budgets and of sums made available to governing bodies by the authority which do not form part of delegated budgets, including conditions prescribing financial controls and procedures.

5.    Terms on which services and facilities were provided by the authority for schools maintained by them.

6.    The payment of interest by or to the authority.

7.    The times at which amounts equal in total to the school’s budget share were to be made available to governing bodies and the proportion of the budget share to be made available at each such time.

8.    The virement between budget heads within the delegated budget.

9.    Circumstances in which a local authority might delegate to the governing body the power to spend any part of the authority’s non-schools education budget or schools budget in addition to those set out in section 49(4)(a) to (c) of the 1998 Act.

10.The use of delegated budgets and of sums made available to a governing body by the local authority which do not form part of delegated budgets.

11.Borrowing by governing bodies.

12.The banking arrangements that might be made by governing bodies.

13.A statement as to the personal liability of governors in respect of schools’ budget shares having regard to section 50(7) of the 1998 Act.

14.A statement as to the allowances payable to governors of a school which did not have a delegated budget in accordance with the scheme made by the authority for the purposes of section 519 of the 1996 Act.

15.The keeping of a register of any business interests of the governors and the head teacher.

16.The provision of information by and to the governing body.

17.The maintenance of inventories of assets.

18.Plans of a governing body’s expenditure.

19.A statement as to the taxation of sums paid or received by a governing body.

20.Insurance.

21.The use of delegated budgets by governing bodies so as to satisfy the authority’s duties imposed by or under  ...  view the full minutes text for item 163.

Report attached.

The Forum had been advised that on the 7^th March 2016 the Department for Education had launched 2 consultations as follows:

1.    A National Funding Forum formula for schools; and

2.    A High Needs formula and other reforms.

The closing date for responses on both consultations was 17^th April 2016.

DA had informed the Forum that he had attended a briefing given by the DFE Funding Policy Unit which had covered the detail of the two consultations.

1.    Proposals for a schools national funding formula.

The purpose behind the proposals was to develop a funding system that supported every child to achieve their potential, whatever their background. This system should:

·         Be fair;

·         Be efficient;

·         Get funding straight to schools;

·         Be transparent;

·         Be simple; and

·         Be predictable.

The proposals were:

·         To move to a school level (‘hard’) national funding formula from 2019-20;

·         To use the ‘hard’ national funding formula to determine local authorities schools block allocations in 2017/18 and 2018/19, but leave them to set formulae locally ( a ‘soft’ formula);

·         To ‘re-baseline’ local authorities’ DSG blocks to reflect current practice . Ring-fence the schools block from 2017/18 onwards so that all schools block funding goes to schools;

·         To introduce a new ‘central schools block’ so the Dedicated Schools Grant will have four blocks in total (schools, central schools, high needs and early years.

·         Alongside these changes, the pupil premium would remain as a separate grant.

The DFE’s starting point for the school national funding formula was those factors currently allowed in local formulae. To be included in the formula, the DFE believed a factor should:

·         Be linked to significant costs in schools – not necessarily costs faced by every school, but things that were commonly recognised as significant drivers of cost at national level;

·         Make a significant difference to the distribution of funding between schools;

·         Be based on data which was accurate at school-level, up to date and appropriately quality-assured, with no perverse incentive to increase funding; and

·         Be clearly tied to pupil characteristics, as far as possible.

DA had prepared answers to the 25 questions posed in the consultation document and all were discussed by the Forum. After much discussion the main point of contention remained question 16

‘a) do you agree that we should include an area cost adjustment?

b)   Which methodology for the area cost adjustment do you support?

·         General labour market methodology

·         Hybrid methodology.’

MD had concerns that neither methodology appeared to recognise the difference between Inner and Outer London, indeed was there still a distinction? DA explained that salary costs for Inner and Outer London boroughs demonstrated a clear distinction.

JW felt that the fact that Havering had an Essex post code did not help. Havering was the third largest London Borough and this was not always recognised. In recent years the changes which had affected Havering with the rapid influx of families from Inner London boroughs had not been recognised.

The Forum had asked DA to undertake some more research around  ...  view the full minutes text for item 164.

The next meetings have been arranged as follows:

2016

Thursday 28^th April

Thursday 23^rd June

All meetings to be held at CEME at 8.30am.

The Forum had agreed that the next meeting should be held on Thursday 28^th April, commencing at 8.30 am at CEME.

The meeting scheduled for 23^rd June now clashes with the European referendum and DA had been asked to arrange an alternative date.

SC raised the question of school kitchens. Her school which did not have a kitchen, but used the adjacent Infant school, was being asked to meet part of the cost of replacing equipment, but were not being consulted as to whether or not replacement was necessary.

NE also expressed his concerns. When the decision had been taken to make schools responsible for school kitchens, but not the service, the Forum had registered they opposition to the change. He added that the kitchen already costs his school between £8k and £10k per annum.

MD raised concerns concerning the demand to introduce a cashless payment system, this was not what parents wanted, nor did he.

DA explained that Havering Catering Service provided the catering service, and as an in-house provider they had not been required to tender for the work. He confirmed that schools were responsible for the equipment, therefore if a new contractor was appointed the equipment could not be removed.

At the request of the Forum Dennis Brewin, Manager of Havering Catering Service will be invited to a future meeting to discuss these issues.