Agenda item

Lisa Potts introduced the report (Agenda Item 13) that set out the budget proposal for services funded from the Central Schools’ Services (CSSB) block of the DSG and to propose measures to enable the budget for this block to be balanced.

A draft figure had been provided for the CSSB and the current allocation was a reduction of about 2.5 percent from the current year. A reduction of about the same amount had happened over the last few years. The issue was that staff costs were increasing. The costs had been looked at in detail last year to help balance the budget. The difficulty for 2023-24 was that staffing costs had gone up by about four percent, placing increased pressure on the block.

Lisa Potts explained that the shortfall in the block for 2023/24 was about £53k. There were a couple of options to help balance the budget including further cost savings, transferring funds from another block or setting a deficit budget. The Heads Funding Group had been in support of reducing costs.

Reverend Mark Bennet reported that he had contact with a number of school business managers and they were feeling very under pressure. He queried if anyone had scoped the additional support that might be required if there were further unfunded pay rises for teachers. More schools were in fear of having to submit deficit budgets. Reverend Mark Bennet felt that many school business managers were feeling the pressure in terms of setting next year’s budget in uncertain times and some might be feeling too much pressure. Melanie Ellis referred to the point about further schools in deficit. Sarah Reynard (Senior Accountant) was the dedicated resource for schools in or facing difficulty. Schools could approach Sarah and she would help them potentially avoid deficit or would work very closely with those in deficit. There had been a varying number of schools in deficit over the last few years and the amount that Sarah Reynard could manage depended on the level of need of each school and the competency of the business manager. There were a number of factors that made it difficult to state exactly how many schools could be supported. Whether extra resource was required needed to be looked at along with whether the schools accountancy team could deliver a higher level of service to schools in deficit.

Gemma Piper asked how many schools were thought to be on the cusp of being in deficit and whether it was just one or two or a ‘cliff edge’ type scenario. Melanie Ellis reported that a survey had been sent out to all schools and she was going to present the results to the next meeting in January. Questions included a focus on cost pressures and whether schools expected to fall into deficit. The survey had been sent out in October and focused largely on the impact of the pay award. Gemma Piper reported that the non-teaching pay award had been confirmed since then as well and this had tipped many schools over the edge. Melanie Ellis added that they were also unsure currently regarding extra funding announced as part of the Government’s Autumn Statement, which could impact on the number of deficit schools going forward.

Ant Sizer noted that Melanie Ellis had some information on schools on the cusp of facing a deficit but noted that it had been stated that there were also some school business managers not as competent as others. From this he queried if it was known which schools might require extra support to deal with the impending cost implications as some schools would be able to deal with pressures better than others. Melanie Ellis reported that this was not currently factored in but would need to be later in the year. It was noted that some schools did not have a school business manager and only had finance officers. It also depended on the size of schools as smaller schools had a much smaller resource and were often the ones facing more financial difficulty. A judgement call would be required on how much support was needed. Sometimes it was not possible to know this until work with individual schools started.

Catie Colston observed from the detail in the report that an enormous amount of money was being paid for national copyright licenses. It was noted that the cost was determined by the relevant national agencies and Catie Colston queried what this meant. It was also queried what the national copyright licenses paid for.  Lisa Potts reported that an invoice was provided by the DfE and the money was taken directly out of the funding allocation. Lisa Potts reported that she had a breakdown of the costs and it included the school printing music license, newspaper licensing agency, education recording agency, public video screening licenses, motion picture licenses etc. Catie Colston was unsure of how many schools made use of all the things listed and commented that it was a very large amount of money.

Catie Colston noted in Appendix A to the report that Capita One was listed and included large sums of money. It was queried if this was something again that had to be paid because education data had to be provided. Lisa Potts explained that there were various different modules and this was broken down into various elements. The bulk of the charges related to the provision of information and was why a large chunk came from the CSSB. The Chair queried if the costs were ever challenged. Michelle Sancho commented that the areas went out to tender to get the best price and if there was a better price/provider then this would be determined as part of this process.

Catie Colston commented that she had wondered if the area was made up of a basket of things, which might or might not be required. If they were near a ‘cliff edge’ in terms of schools then each of the large sums of money listed would need to be looked at closely. Catie Colston acknowledged that there was not a lot else to cut. If what could be afforded was reducing, Catie Colston queried when the local authority would not be able to afford to provide such things anymore, and it was queried how close the local authority was to facing a ‘cliff edge’. Lisa Potts reported that she could go back to the team to see if all that was listed was relevant.

Councillor Dominic Boeck reported that the local authority was nowhere near a ‘cliff edge’ and although challenges were being faced the authority would balance its budget for 2023-24 in March. It was perfectly reasonable for the Forum to challenge any element of the schools budgets and he hoped that information could be presented to the next round of meetings in response to these challenges.

RESOLVED that Lisa Potts would investigate the CSSB budget further particularly national copyright licenses and Capita costs and whether all of these were required. Any information would be reported back to the next Schools’ Forum meeting in January 2023.