Agenda item

The Forum considered a report (Agenda Item 10) regarding the payments made to schools from the Growth Fund and Falling Rolls Fund budget in 2015/16.

In 2015/16 six schools meet the Growth Fund criteria and the relevant payments had been approved by the Head of Education as follows:

·         Calcot Junior £29,167

·         Robert Sandilands £29,167

·         Winchcombe £29,167

·         Purley £29,167

·         John Rankin Junior £29,167

·         The Willink £12,728

As experienced in 2014/15, no schools were eligible for the Falling Rolls fund. In order to qualify, schools that were experiencing a significant fall in pupil numbers as set out in the criteria needed to have a good or outstanding Ofsted rating. There was only one school that met the criteria, but it was not expected that the fall in pupil numbers would be recovered in the short term.

The overall position on these budgets was as follows:

It was likely that the total under spend of £163,598 would be carried forward and added to the growth fund for 2016/17. This was required in order to build up funding to pay for new schools (a new primary school was expected to open in September 2017). No additional funding would be paid to the local authority in the first year of a new school or as year groups are added, due to the fact that funding was based on the previous year pupil numbers.

Graham Spellman enquired why an extra school was being built when the increase in pupil numbers was spread across schools throughout the District. Ian Pearson replied that three schools experiencing increased numbers were in Newbury which in addition to geographical demographic forecasting, meant that at least one more one-form entry school would be required. A primary school would be opening in South Newbury in 2017.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.