Agenda item

Report attached.

It was noted that the DSG account had been closed earlier than usual. A total of £1.324 million was unspent, principally due to some agreed projects not having started.

The projects had been funded from DSG underspends carried forward from the previous financial year.  They included projects for vulnerable two-year olds which had started late but had proved successful. Additional Resource Provisions, a budget to pay late recoupment claims from other LAs and adjustments to business rates.

Early years and high needs were overspent while the schools block was underspent by £874k.  The overspend in Early Years was partially due to the mismatch in the payments made during the year for which Early Years Grant was not received until the following financial year. DA would bring to the next meeting a breakdown of the high needs overspend.

The underspend in pupil growth was due to the late start of the anticipated bulges and expansions in pupil numbers. The School Partnership budget had underspent and had been reduced for 2016-17. It was noted that a payment had been missed for the public private partnership applied for three schools for energy conservation work; these arrangements were ending in about two years’ time. The budget for termination of employment costs was not spent and was no longer included in the 2016-17 budget. There was a slight overspend on the School Admissions budget.  From the de-delegated budgets there had been a missed payment on the trade union facility time budget and an underspend in the budget to support schools in financial difficulty which would be needed in 2016-17.

Carry-overs requested for 2016-17 were for the continuation of the vulnerable two year olds project, the residual costs of the case officers and assistant educational psychologists for EHCPs, funding to support Additional Resource Provision and residual costs of the professionals’ portal.

DA would take back that several schools were still writing their own EHCPs. JW felt it was frustrating that early years/SEND staff were undertaking the work of the Council re SEND. The early years service received no financial help for SEND children and an hourly rate had to be funded that was less than the maintained sector.

SI suggested that Carline Penfold could meet with the forum. Early years was a national issue and the points re funding needed to be forcefully made to Government. JW felt it was important to transition a SEND child to the primary sector with the right funding so that the child did not struggle in school. KC added that she would no longer allow her SEND staff to do the paperwork for EHC Plans as there were Council officers for this.

SL explained that he had not yet had any support for a business case for ASD facilities at Hall Mead. A similar situation existed at Redden Court. Hall Mead was expecting an additional four statemented children from September but had not received the required funding as yet and hence did not have the infrastructure for this. SI would contact SL and Redden Court direct regarding these issues. There was a need for a process and system to be established between schools and asset management.   A carry forward of £521k had been requested from the previous year’s projects

Two other schools had come forward to take part in the behavioural pilot although no schools had come forward as yet for the higher level  of the step-up model. . 

The requested carry forward was AGREED by the Forum but more assurance and details of expenditure were requested.  Also AGREED by the Forum were the use of carry forwards for payments due in 2016-17 as shown in table 6.2 of the report and the roll forward of de-delegated budgets as shown in table 6.3.

DA would bring a report to the next meeting on schools unable to set a balanced budget and it was noted that increased pension and National Insurance contributions had led to a deficit for some schools. One option for schools to make savings could be to federate with another school in order to share costs.

It was hoped that a revised allocation of the DSG from 2017/18 would result in a better allocation for Havering. DA would also report to the next meeting on schools with large carry overs