Agenda item

Melanie Ellis introduced the report (Agenda Item 11) that provided the findings from a survey of maintained schools, particularly focussing on the impact of the pay award.

Melanie Ellis reported that the survey had recently been sent out to all schools and focused largely on the impact of the pay award. During budgeting the Schools’ Accountancy Team had advised applying 2.25 percent however, the actual increase was quite a lot higher than this. 

The result of the survey showed that there was only a reduction of about £189k in main school balances due to the pay award.

Melanie Ellis reported that 59 out of 61 primary schools had responded to the consultation and there was a reduction in balances of about £1m for primary schools. Half of schools were saying that this was due to the pay settlement and half had cited other reasons including staff and supply teacher costs. The mitigation that schools were putting in place largely included using reserves followed by potential staff reductions in the future. The biggest reasons stated for the pressure were staffing, energy, supplies and inflation costs.  

Melanie Ellis moved on to maintained secondary schools and reported that there was a small increase in balances however, this varied between the schools. Two were expecting an increase in their balance and one a small reduction, with similar reasons being cited for the pressure.

PRU and maintained special schools were expecting balances to increase by 30 percent (£876k). Two of the schools were expecting an increase in balance and one a decrease. The main reason for the increases was around the recruitment of staff and a high number of vacancies.

Section nine of the report provided detail on deficit schools. There were currently five deficit schools and as a result of pressures being faced it was possible this would increase to ten. This be monitored continuously until year end.

Richard Hand queried if any of the £2m promised by Government had come through to schools yet. Melanie Ellis believed that this would form part of next year’s settlement. The forecast position provided in the report was taken half way through 2022/23 and therefore this additional funding would not have been factored in. Richard Hand further asked if rising energy costs from April were factored in to the figures. Melanie Ellis reported that schools should be factoring this in to their own budgets that would be submitted to the Local Authority in the next few months. The new levels of funding that had been awarded for 2023/24 should help some way toward helping schools with increasing energy costs. The Schools’ Accountancy Team would be advising schools that budgets for energy needed to be sufficient.

Reverend Mark Bennett referred to the issue that schools addressing high needs were carrying high levels of vacancies and he asked if there was a sense of how this was impacting these schools’ ability to deliver education and what was being done about staff wellbeing and potential retention issues down the line. Michelle Sancho reported that it was a challenging time for schools for several reasons. Staff retention was an issue particularly regarding teaching assistants because salaries in local supermarkets were rivalling that of teaching assistants in schools. There was currently a campaign taking place to support schools with recruiting teaching assistants and to look at what could be put in place in terms of staff training and support. Other ways were also being looked at to help schools support the wellbeing of staff at all levels in schools. It was an ongoing issue that the Local Authority was aware of and having conversations with schools about so that solutions could be found. 

RESOLVED that the Schools’ Forum noted the report.