Agenda item

Wendy Howells introduced the report (Agenda Item 9), which set out the actual deployment of the Dedicated Schools’ Grant (DSG) in 2017/18 and proposed the amount to be carried forward to 2018/19. Wendy Howells added that the report had come to the last meeting of the Schools’ Forum however, by omission some of the recommendations within the report had not been voted on and therefore needed to return for consideration.

Wendy Howells explained that Table 1 showed the year end position for 2017/18 and that the actual over spend at year end was £13,549.

Section 5.2 set out proposals that the Schools’ Forum were required to vote on. All recommendations were the same as what had been submitted to the July Schools’ Forum meeting apart from the recommendation for School Improvement. It was proposed that £5,960 of this budget be used to offset the overspend in the Statutory and Regulatory Duties budget and to correct the £37k over allocation of the under spends from last year.

Jonathan Chishick asked how the decision to cap the Schools in Financial Difficulty Fund at £200k affected the recommendation concerning the budget under section 5.2. Ian Pearson confirmed that schools would not be asked to contribute to the fund in 2019/20 or until the fund dropped below £200k.

Keith Harvey asked if the decisions required were based on the current year’s budget rather than 2019/20 and it was confirmed that this was correct. It was noted that the following items were for decision by maintained secondary and primary schools only.

1)    Primary Schools in Financial Difficulty: It was recommended that the unspent budget of £259,099 be added to the funding available in 2018/19 to help meet restructuring costs for schools in deficit – this would provide a total budget of £379,120. It was noted that this was a decision for maintained primary school representatives only.

RESOLVED that: the Schools’ Forum agreed the recommendation.

2)    Support to Ethnic and Minority and Bilingual Learners – it was recommended to use the amount of £35,170 to offset the cost to schools for this service in 2019/20 (this will be an approximate reduction of £50 per pupil).

RESOLVED that: the Schools’ Forum agreed the recommendation.

3)    Behaviour Support - It was recommended that the amount of £4,500 be added to the current year budget and utilised in 2018/19.

RESOLVED that: the Schools’ Forum agreed the recommendation.

4)    Growth Fund - It was recommended that this money be rolled into the budget already set for 2018/19 thereby increasing the budget to £277,710.

RESOLVED that: the Schools’ Forum agreed the recommendation.

5)    School improvement: £73,410 – it was recommended that £5,960 be utilised to offset the over spend in the Statutory and Regulatory Duties budget and to correct the £27k over allocation of the under spends from last year.

RESOLVED that: the Schools’ Forum agreed the recommendation.

6)    Statutory and Regulatory Duties: It was recommended that the amount of £5,960 be covered by the school improvement under spend above.

RESOLVED that: the Schools’ Forum approved the recommendation.