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Agenda item

Central Schools Block Budget Proposals 2018/19 (Gabrielle Esplin/Ian Pearson)

Minutes:

Ian Pearson introduced the report, which set out the budget position for services funded from the Central Schools’ Services block of the Dedicated Services Grant (DSG) and to propose measures to enable the budget for this block to be balanced.

Ian Pearson stated that there seemed to be a floor regarding what the Government had based its formula on for this block.

Grant funding for this block was based on an amount per pupil, 10% of which was allocated to relative deprivation levels. West Berkshire had a large number of smaller schools and therefore was receiving less funding than larger authorities. In addition, central services support for Early Years and High Needs was not included in this formula. To try and rectify the problem a number of recommendations were included under section two of the report as follows:

      i.        To transfer £27,053 from the High Needs Block and £32,850 from the Early Years Block to the Central Schools Services Block;

    ii.        To make a saving of £30,000 in the cost of central services to schools by making permanent the temporary management arrangements currently in place for the Education Welfare Service;

   iii.        To recommend to the Council’s Capital Strategy Group that the remainder of the Education Asset Management Team be funded from the Council’s capital programme, in order to achieve a saving of £54,000 in the Central Schools Services block;

   iv.        To recommend to the Council that the full cost of strategic planning of the education service and finance support for Education services outside the DSG should be funded from the Council’s budget.

Gabrielle Esplin referred to recommendations iii and iv. She stated that she had attended the meeting of the Capital Strategy Group, where it had been agreed that the required saving (as highlighted in recommendation iii) be included within the Capital Management Strategy. This would be considered by the Council’s Budget Board on Thursday 25th January 2018. Recommendation iv would be taken to the Council’s Executive (February 2018) and Full Council (March 2018) meeting for decision.

Suzanne Taylor stressed her concern about taking money from the Early Years and High Needs Block budgets, when these areas were already under a great amount of pressure. She was concerned that the amount of money per child in Early Years setting would get cut further. Ian Pearson stated that concerns were being taken into account however, it was going to be extremely difficult to balance the budget outside of the Dedicated School Grant (DSG) and regrettable decisions were having to be made. Brian Jenkins stressed that early years settings were already under extreme strain and there seemed to be no options for improvement. He found the recommendation (i) extremely difficult to accept and asked if there was any chance this could be reviewed. Ian Pearson confirmed that this had been reviewed many times and therefore a further review was not an option.

Helen Newman noted the increase in National Copyright Licences outlined on the table of page 30 of the report. Claire White confirmed that there was no control over this area, the rates were set nationally.

David Ramsden felt that effort being made to settle the shortfall of £190k outside of the DSG was sensible. He was however, aware that capital funding was already a very pressured area and asked if shifting this pressure would cause further pressures elsewhere. Gabrielle Esplin reported that the capital budget had already been cut however not in the area of education.

Helen Newman asked what the plan would be if recommendation iii was refused by the Council. Ian Pearson stated that this would be reviewed if necessary. The Council’s Head of Finance had advised that the recommendation be put before Members and the outcome of this route would be known shortly. 

Jonathan Chishick noted that West Berkshire was disadvantaged due to it being a small local authority and with this in mind questioned if options to work with other authorities had been explored to provide a joint service. Ian Pearson confirmed that options for joint working had been looked into, including with authorities in Hampshire and Berkshire. Some of these authorities were particularly difficult to negotiate with. Keith Watts concurred with Ian Pearson and added that these arrangements were often difficult due to changes in personnel. What seemed like a straight forward process was often costly and complex.

The Chairman consulted the Forum on whether it would like to agree the recommendations collectively or individually and collectively was decided as the most appropriate approach.

David Ramsden proposed that the Schools’ Forum support the recommendations set out under section two of the report and this was seconded by Chris Davis. At the vote this motion was carried.

RESOLVED that the recommendations set out in section two of the report were approved by the Schools’ Forum.

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