Agenda item

(It was agreed by the Chair that Agenda Item 10 could be considered next on the agenda before Item 7)

Avril Allenby introduced the report (Agenda Item 10), which aimed to set out the proposal for the Early Years budget 2022/23, which was based upon the recommendations of the Early Years Funding Group.

Avril Allenby reported that the purpose of the report was to update the Forum on deficit recovery progress and to propose what the budget should be going forward. This was challenging because the data from the annual census had only just been received and the information had needed to be analysed quickly.

Lisa Potts reported that in the current year they were looking at a forecast overspend against hours that were delegated to providers. There was a small saving on the centrally managed funds, which was through the Disability Access Fund. Lisa Potts drew attention to the table under section 4.6 and highlighted that £206k had needed to be returned to the DfE and there was an adjustment for the current year of £205k. It was noted that the two figures almost offset each other. There had been a delay in receiving the adjustment position for the last financial year and it had not been received until November 2021 when it was normally received in July. The paperwork had been updated to reflect these changes. Lisa Potts explained that whilst a budget overspend of £1.1m had been set for the current year, the forecast had now been reduced to £916k, which was an improved position. Lisa Potts stressed that this was still not the final outturn position however, a great amount of change was not expected.

Lisa Potts moved on to provide details on the deficit recovery position, which was included under section five of the report. Lisa Potts drew attention to the table under section 5.2 and explained that the deficit recovery plan set out to save £123k in year one. The provisional figures were expected to be £129k, which was an over achievement of £6k. This was because the hours in the area of deprivation had increased. The deficit recovery position would continue to be monitored.

Lisa Potts reported that as a result of the Spending Review additional funding would be received for early year providers. When determining the local rates there were two factors that needed to be taken into consideration including the deficit recovery and the new funding from Government. The table under  6.2 of the report showed the local rates in the current financial year, the rates as per deficit recovery and the proposed rates when the new funding was applied using the local formula. The pass-through rate for 2022/23, which had been discussed with the Early Years Funding Group would be 99.7%.

Lisa Potts drew attention to the table under 6.6, which detailed the 2022/23 budget. It was important to note that the numbers of hours that this was based on fluctuated. It was hoped there would be an increase in hours. The indicative figure of £10m had been received from the DfE. There was a shortfall predicted for 2022/23 of just under £367k and Lisa Potts reported that work would take please to look in to what had caused this.

Avril Allenby commented that they had tried to carefully balance the deficit recovery position with being able to pass through additional funding from Government to providers. It was pointed out that the funding from Government would be over a three year period. Care had been taken to ensure each provider received a reasonable amount of uplift because the additional funding had been provided to support providers with rising costs such as salaries, national insurance and the impact of covid.

Keith Harvey proposed that the Forum agree the 2022/23 budgets as detailed in 6.6 of the report and this was seconded by Jon Hewitt. The Chair invited the Forum to vote and at the vote the motion was carried.

RESOLVED that the Schools’ Forum approved the 2022/23 budgets as detailed in 6.6 of the report.