Agenda item

Action

Ian Pearson presented the report on the proposed de-delegations for 2015/16.

The Primary and Secondary school representatives on the Schools’ Forum are required to make the pooling decision for their own school phase.

The services where maintained schools have the option to pool the funding so that the services can continue to be provided centrally and benefit from economies of scale are as follows:

Behaviour Support

Ian Pearson presented the report on Behaviour Support.

The anticipated budget requirement for 2015/16 is £212k (excluding academies).

Both primary and secondary maintained representatives recommend the pooling of funding. However the final recommendation will be considered by the Schools’ Forum members at the September meeting following the consultation with the schools.

Ethnic Minority Support

Ian Pearson presented the report on the Ethnic Minority Support.

English language assessments and training for teachers and teaching assistants to support pupils where English is an additional language and pupils from a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage continue to be in demand particularly in the primary schools.

The anticipated delegations for 2015/16 are £232k for primary schools and £30k for secondary schools.

Both primary and secondary maintained representatives recommend the pooling of funding. However the final recommendation will be considered by the Schools’ Forum members at the September meeting following the consultation with the schools.

Trade Union Local Representation

Robert O’Reilly presented the report on the trade union facilities budget which compensates schools for release time for trade union representatives that they employ at their salary rate.

The trade union facilities outturn position for 2013/14 was 25% overspent and 2014/15 is expected to overspend again, particularly as more money is now required by the unions as one of the NASUWT representatives has been elected as a national representative which was not provided for in the budget.

The report included a proposal to change the compensation rates to schools which employ trade union representatives to supply teacher rates. However the schools are likely not to agree if the teacher is paid more than a supply teacher and any change in compensation rates would require consultation with the unions before final agreement.

Academies do not use the local representatives instead they choose to use the regional representatives who are paid for by the union.

If the decision is made to discontinue pooling arrangements by the schools then it will be difficult to reverse in the future.

At the Heads Funding Group there were no maintained secondary school Headteachers present to contribute to the trade union facilities budget discussion and the primary Headteachers present could not reach a decision and therefore were not in a position to make a recommendation.

The Schools Forum also found the decision was complicated by the funding issue. It was therefore decided to deal with the funding issue and the pooling arrangement separately. Both the Primary and Secondary maintained schools representatives present recommended in principle the pooling of the funding.

The final decision will be made by Forum members at the September meeting.

Contingency for Schools in Financial Difficulty

£116k carried forward to 2014/15 resulting in a budget of £231k for 2014/15. Currently the £39k bid by The Ilsleys and the £74k bid by Bradfield Primary School have been approved by the Schools’ Forum.

The Heads Funding Group primary school members recommended the continued pooling of the Schools in Financial Difficulty funding in 2015/16 to the Schools Forum. The secondary school member present at the Schools Forum recommended that they continue not to pool the funding.

The final decision will be made by Forum members at the September meeting.