Agenda item

Melanie Ellis introduced the report (Agenda Item 7) that aimed to inform the Schools’ Forum on the outturn of the services funded by the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), highlighting any under or over spends, and sought to highlight the reserves deficit at 31 March 2020. Melanie Ellis highlighted figures were provisional until signed off by the Council as external auditors.

The yearend position was a deficit of £1.8m however, with balances in the reserve there was a cumulative deficit of £1.56m. This would be top-sliced against the relevant DSG blocks in the 2020/21 budget.

Melanie Ellis moved on to talk about the individual blocks. There was a £1m surplus budget in the Schools’ Block and this mainly consisted of remaining balances in the Growth Fund and other de-delegated balances.

The Early Years Block (EYB) had a deficit of £875k and there was a separate report on this block later on the agenda. There was a small surplus in the Central Schools Services Block (CSSB) and there was a deficit in the High Needs Block (HNB) of £1.8m. The deficit in the HNB was £300k better than originally forecasted due to some savings that had been made in year that were detailed within the report.

Melanie Ellis explained that because of the cumulative deficit of £1.56m within the DSG, there was a requirement from the Department for Education (DfE) to provide a deficit recovery plan. The Local Authority was currently awaiting guidance from the DfE on when this recovery plan would need to be submitted. The recovery plan would be brought to a future meeting of the Schools’ Forum.

RESOLVED that the Schools’ Forum noted the report.