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Agenda item

Update on Schools in Financial Difficulty (Claire White)

Minutes:

Claire White introduced the report (Item 13), which provided an update from the schools that had set a deficit budget in 2018/19.

All of the schools in deficit had received a support meeting which had taken place between September and early November. The meetings had been attended by the Headteacher, school business manager, the Chair of Governors and/or the Chair of Finance and then from the Local Authority, the School Finance Manager, the senior or school accountant and a peer Headteacher. Claire White commented that it had been particularly useful to have a peer Headteacher present.

Claire White stated that although the process was time consuming it was extremely useful. Workshops would have been an alternative way to carry out the process however, it would have been much harder for schools to apply the information to their own circumstances. Claire White reported that schools in deficit would be re-visited in the spring term of 2018 to consider their budgets for 2018/19. All other schools had been encouraged to review their positions. Claire White reported that so far only 10 schools had requested a support meeting. Details on the questions these schools were asked in assessing their position were included under section five of the report. 

Claire White highlighted that the report contained the reports provided by each school. Each school had been given a RAG rating, which had been determined by the West Berkshire team in its assessment on how likely the school was to recover the deficit as per the school’s plan, set at the beginning of this financial year. 

Chris Davis noted that Beenham was rated as ‘amber’ however, in 2020/22 it was anticipated that the school would be back in deficit. Claire White reported that at the next meeting with the school in the spring term, the aim would be to check that the school had put firm plans in place to help avoid this happening.

Keith Watts was concerned that some schools seemed to have gone into deficit when they had opted to have one Headteacher between two schools. He was concerned that some schools might see this as an option to cut costs when in reality it made the situation worse. Keith Watt raised a second concern in reference to Kintbury School recruiting teachers based on a salary scale and he did not feel that this was credible. Finally Keith Watts asked what challenge there was for schools were using support staff to cover for teachers.

Claire White responded that the federated schools she had visited were in deficit for a number of different reasons and not because they had chosen to become federated. Financial problems were mainly as a result of poor financial management or because pupils numbers had reduced quicker than a school was able to plan for. With regards to recruiting teachers on lower salary scales to make savings, Claire White reported that schools needed a plan in place to remodel staffing structures, and recruiting on a lower salary scale was an additional “fortuitous” saving. Finally in relations to Keith Watts question about support staff covering for teachers, Claire White reported that this was mainly in relation to HLTAs rather than TAs.

RESOLVED that the Schools’ Forum noted the report.

 

Supporting documents: