Agenda item

Ian Pearson introduced the report (Agenda Item 10) which set out the details, cost, and charges (de-delegations) to schools of the services on which primary and secondary maintained school representatives were required to vote (on an annual basis) on whether to de-delegate or not.

The services where maintained schools had the option to pool funding in 2017/18 were:

·         Behaviour Support Services

·         Ethnic Minority Support

·         Trade Union Representation

·         Schools in Financial Difficulty (primary only)

·         Consortium of Local Education Authorities for the Provision of Science Services (CLEAPSS) (new for 2017/18)

Claire White advised that from 2017/18 the General Education Services Grant (ESG) of £1.472m was being cut. This grant was received by local authorities to provide some mainly statutory services to maintained schools. Academies also received this grant in order to pay for the same services, and would also have their grant phased out. A consequence of this was that maintained schools would be charged for these services, and academies would continue to pay for these services but no longer receive the grant to pay for them.

It was assumed that the process of charging maintained schools for these services would work the same as de-delegations, in that the cost of these services would in part be deducted from school budget allocations, and would need to be agreed by the Schools Forum for each phase.

Regarding the School Improvement Service, statutory elements would now be met by a new transitional government grant and the remainder would be either a de-delegation or a buy-back. It had also been clarified that the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education would be met by the retained element.

Regarding Health and Safety, a large element was statutory and another element was a buy-back; it was proposed that the two portions be combined into a de-delegated fund.

David Ramsden expressed concern at the use of the phrase ‘mainly statutory services’ and asked that the January 2017 report made it clear exactly each services were statutory.

RESOLVED that:

·         Maintained primary and secondary heads agree the de-delegations as set out in Table 7.

·         The decision on services previously funded by the Education Services Grant be deferred until the January 2017 meeting of the Schools’ Forum.