Agenda item

Melanie Ellis introduced the report, which provided details of the five schools which had submitted deficit budgets for 2020/21; the two schools which ended the 2019/20 financial year with unlicensed deficit balances; deficit recovery progress statement from the school outlined above and summaries of schools that had informed West Berkshire Council they now expected to end the 2020/21 financial year with an unlicensed deficit balance.

Melanie Ellis reported that there were five schools with licensed deficits for 2020/21 and two of the five schools were predicting that they would be out of deficit by the end of the financial year. Schools remaining in deficit would need revised plans and would need to be monitored throughout the following financial year.

Section four of the report detailed that two schools had ended the financial year 2019/20 with unlicensed deficits. Both schools had submitted their Period Nine Budget Monitoring and Forecast report, which had been reviewed by the Schools’ Accountancy Team and feedback provided. Both schools were predicting to be in a better financial position by the end of the financial year.

Melanie Ellis reported that the main concern was that at the end of Period Nine, six primary schools had informed the Local Authority that they now expected to end the financial year 2020/21 with an unplanned deficit on their Main School Budget, with the total forecast value of £94,002.

Seventeen primary schools also expected to end the year with unplanned year end deficits on their Out of Hours Clubs, with a total forecast value of £170,589. This had been hugely impacted by Covid. The Out of Hours budgets would be transferred to main school budgets at year end so once everything once added together it was possible that there could be 11 schools with deficits totally a value of about £224k. The picture on this would not be fully clear until year end. Melanie Ellis proposed to bring a report to the next meeting of the Forum in June 2021, which set out the final position of schools in deficit.

RESOLVED that:

• Melanie Ellis to bring a report to the next Forum meeting in June 2021, which set out the final position for schools in deficit.
• The Schools Forum noted the report.