ManchesterTown Hall
PO Box 532
Manchester
M60 2LA
Circular letter
To: Head Teachers and Principals of all schools including academies / To reply please contact:
Amanda Corcoran
Tel: / 0161 234 7944
Email: /
Date: / 16 March 2015
Category: Policy / Finance
Circular no: / 0865Title: / ManchesterCity Council Budget 2015/16
Alert status: / AMBER
Summary: / This note provides schools with information on the areas linked to Education and Schools where the Council has decided to make savings in order to set a budget for 2015/16.
Previous papers: / NA
Action required: / For information
Contact officers: / Amanda Corcoran
Attachments: / NA
Dear Colleague,
You may be aware that at a full Council meeting on 6 March 2015, the Council agreed to implement a number of savings proposals in order to set a balanced budget for 2015/16. The decision on where savings should be made follows a period of public consultation which ran from 1 December 2014 initially to 26 January 2015 and was then extended to1 February as a result of changes to the total resource available to the Council when the airport dividend became available.
Details of the outcomes of this consultation and the full range of savings which will be implemented following this decision are available on the Council's website. This circular letter specifically provides school with information on the savings linked to Education which may impact on pupils and schools.
The Council has agreed that savings will be made in the areas outlined below:
SEN Home to School transport
A saving of £1,000,000 will be made from a budget of £6,042,000 over 2 years. This saving will be achieved through the implementation of a new home to school travel policy which will introduce new eligibility criteria and will mean that the Council no longer provides transport free of charge for young people unless there is a legal requirement to secure home to school travel.
The new policy will also mean that young people who meet eligibility criteria will have a home to school travel plan which will not necessarily include transport.
www.manchester.gov.uk
Free School Travel Passes:
A saving of £40,000 in 2015/16 will be made from a budget of £1,023,000. This saving will be made by only issuing free travel passes to pupils based on the minimum statutory criteria.
These are:
Provide free transport to all pupils of compulsory school age (5-16) if nearestsuitable provision is; beyond 2 miles (if below the age of 8) or beyond 3 miles (if aged between 8-16)from the school if they’re 8 or older; or for any child in the above age groups who can not reasonably beexpected to walk to the nearest suitable school because the nature of theroute has been deemed unsafe to walk.
To provide free transport where pupils are entitled to free school meals or theirparents are in receipt of maximum working tax credit if:
The nearest suitable school is beyond 2 miles (for children over 8 butunder 11 years of age)
The school is between 2 and 6 miles (for children aged 11 to 16 and thereare not 3 or more suitable nearer schools with a real offer)
The school is between 2 and 15 miles and the nearest school preferredon the grounds of religion of belief, (for 11-16 year olds).
A suitable school is defined as any maintained school, pupil referral unit or academy school
(Including free schools) which makes educational provision appropriate for the age ofthe child. This change will be implemented through the new policy for pupils who will be in year 7 or Reception from September 2015.
Short breaks for children with SEN or a disability:
A saving of £316,000 will be made from a budget of £2,100,000 over 2 years. This will be achieved by:
Working with universal service providers (youth, leisure and play services)so that they can be more accessible;
Developing a more flexible approach to delivering targeted short breaksso that resources are allocated on the basis of need;
Developing the external market so an increased range of providers isavailable that would bring more competition and choice and improvevalue for money.
School Clothing Grant:
A saving of £267,000 which is the total budget allocated. This discretionary grant will not be allocated from April 2015.
Attendance:
Statutory action a saving of £500,000 will be made by April 2016 from a total budget of £917,000. This will be achieved by changing the way that statutory action and cases for prosecution are received from schools and processed using a web based solution.
Youth Provision:
The youth and play budgets will be reduced by £1,433,000 over 2015/16 and 2016/17 from a total budget of £4,983,000. This will enable the youth fund and play fund to be sustained at current levels and the savings will be achieved by joining up Youth and Play Services to create a more integrated service which will enable a continuum of provision to be commissioned covering the 5 to 19 age range.
Savings will also be achieved through replacing the current commissioned IAG service with anew.
www.manchester.gov.uk
Targeted Youth Support Service which will meet the needs of the mostvulnerable young people aged 14 – 19, and up to 25 for Young Carers andCare Leavers. The cohort of young people will be identified as those youngpeople who are not compliant with the Raising of the Participation Age (RPA),or who are at risk of becoming disengaged or dependent in the future.
The Targeted Youth Support Service will also target resource at YoungCarers, ensuring that they can access youth provision and receive the supportneeded to carry out their caring responsibilities with out impacting negativelyon their outcomes.
School Crossing Patrols:
It has been agreed that there will be no reductions to the budget for the School Crossing Patrol Service in 2015/16. However, there will be a review of all existing school crossings and a report on the outcome of this will be taken to Young People scrutiny Committee in the summer term.
There will also be some changes to Children's Public Health and these will be detailed in a future letter to schools.
I hope that this clarifies where some of the Council savings have been made. We will be working with schools to support the development and implementation of new policies in some of the areas outlined above including SEN home to school travel and shortbreaks. If you have any queries concerning this information or would like to be involved in further works in these areas please contact Amanda Corcoran.
Yours sincerely,
John Edwards
Director of Education and Skills
www.manchester.gov.uk