Hampshire Schools Forum

Date / 17 January 2017
Time / 09:30 – 1100
Location / Wessex Conference Centre, Sparsholt College
Present / Nursery / Peter Higgs
Primary / Ella Palmer, Esther Jones, Andy King, Amy Mossop, Martina Humber, Shirley Nellthorpe, Paul Street, Jilly Myers
Secondary / Sylvia Vine, Ria Allen, Simon Walker
Special / Keith Norman
Education Centres
Academy / Steve Jones, David Pover
EY / Jane Dyke, Sarah Rolls
TLP / Liz Muir, Faye Mylward
Post 16
Also Present
Observers / Cllr Peter Edgar, Andrew Minall, Kathryn Stevens, Laura Colville, Erica Meadus, Steve Crocker, Helen Hardy (Clerk)
Apologies / Nursery
Primary / Andrew Turk, Charlotte Bailey, Ian Waine
Secondary / Amanda Rowley, Robin Gray
Academy / Beyhan Ercan-Razvi, Kathryn Marshall
Special / David Drew, Anna Dawson, Rob Thompson
Other members / Dominic Coburn, Stephen Carville, Kimberley Norris
Officers / Stuart Ashley, Felicity Roe
Elected Members / Cllr Mans
Action
1 / Welcome and Apologies
The Chair welcomed all members to the meeting.
2 / Election of Vice-Chair
Esther Jones offered to stand as vice-chair to cover the following meeting and was duly elected by the Forum.
3 / Declaration of Interests
Cllr Edgar declared that he is a life member of the NAHT. Liz Muir and Faye Mylward declared an interest in item 7.
4 / Minutes of 15 December 2016
The minutes of 15 December 2016 were accepted as an accurate record.
Action on the European Social Fund money to be carried forward to the March meeting (page 6). / Felicity Roe
5 /

Early years national funding formula consultation

Hampshire will continue to deliver a local formula based on the national allocation with more stipulations from the DfE. The inclusion of the quality supplement has reduced likely turbulence for Hampshire providers, however Ofsted ratings have had to be removed from the local funding formula. Due to the short timescales for introduction of the National Funding Formula, officers took the decision to make as few changes as possible to maintain stability in the sector while ensuring that the DfE criteria are met. Officers consulted with providers over the Christmas period and received responses from 221 providers. The consultation also contained questions around other factors which can be used in the local formula to give officers a steer for the 2018/19 funding. The additional gains from the EYFF have been passported through for the low level SEN funding.

Is the supplementary funding for maintained nursery classes sufficient to maintain them? Officers clarified that it is only for standalone maintained nursery schools and not for primary schools with a nursery units attached according to the DfE definition. For schools with a nursery unit, £15,000 will be protected for next year but from then onwards it will need to be reviewed by Schools Forum.
Will the definition of quality factors remain unchanged? There will be no change for the staff qualification criteria for 2017/18. Longer term there will be consultation on potential changes to these criteria.

Schools Forum agreed to option 1 from the consultation (p 4.14).

Schools Forum noted the funding arrangements for 2017/18.

6 / Review of Split Sites Funding part 2
Following the agreement of option C at the previous Schools Forum, this resulted in changes to be made to the policy as outlined in section 3. There are some scenarios for special schools where a split site requires a case by case approach. The amount schools receive will depend on the number of pupils they have. Going forward the National Funding Formula will have an influence and the policy will need to be reviewed in the future. Option B fits the needs in the short-term but this policy will be kept under review.
Schools Forum approved option B, based on the reasons detailed within section 4 and 5.
7 / Schools Budget 2017/18
The agreed budget has to be submitted to the DfE by 20th January 2017.
High Needs Block – Hampshire has received an additional £2.7m which recognises the current population and growth in the high needs block. This will be kept within the High Needs Block to help with additional pressures.
Education Services Grant (ESG) – officers have tried to be clear and objective to offer the core statutory minimum in terms of these activities, all of which have been extensively reviewed over the last few years to ensure their efficiency.
Retained ESG (services delivered to all schools) – it was agreed to recharge all of this to DSG resulting in no impact on schools.
General ESG (maintained schools only) – this can be top-sliced from maintained school budgets. The total identified spend is now £2.3m, which is significantly less than the grant received and Hampshire will make up the shortfall. The top-slice will be £9.74 per pupil this year (full year amount of £16.70).
School Improvement – a new grant, in the region of £1.5m, will be received by the local authority to fund this, but no technical note has yet been received from the DfE as to how this will be applied. This grant will be used to fund school improvement functions. The shortfall can be covered by de-delegated funding but the LA will not be looking to do this for 2017/18.
Is the top-slice adjusted for school improvement funding? Yes.
A member asked for clarification about the school improvement funding - the DfE have given LAs £50m to cover school improvement; how much was it originally, was it £450m? The cut was £600m from the ESG, some of this is now the grant to support school improvement, with additional for capacity building, some to support the national funding formula, and some for early years. The DfE has tried to redistribute it through the system. It appears to be a far lower amount of funding for school improvement. Cllr Edgar reiterated that Hampshire does not intend to walk away from its responsibilities for school improvement to continue to improve standards in schools.
What might be the potential impact of de-delegating this funding from 2018/19? It is not easy to say at this point but work has started on it. There is not a huge difference between a top-slice and de-delegation. The future of de-delegation is also uncertain in the proposed national funding formula. Officers reiterated that Hampshire has always been cautious about implementing changes, and will therefore identify what changes it and the school community want to see and then how it might go about doing this. Cllr Edgar added that the Cabinet has been developing closer working relationships with the Regional Schools Commissioner to ensure that their work matches up to Hampshire’s expectations of school improvement and there is a greater sense that they are working together.
With regards to reviewing school improvement, instead of top-slicing could this money be given directly to schools? Any review needs to offer value for money and meet schools’ needs. The review will look at how Hampshire manages the shortfall in funding. There is no requirement that this funding in the LA pot has to be spent on school improvement but this is considered to be a priority in Hampshire.
What is the timeframe for the consultation on school improvement? It will be over the next 6 months and will be done through the existing groups and forums. Any decision needs to be taken to future-proof the service.
High Needs – all budgets have been reviewed and increased overall by £6.2m. A paper will come to a future Schools Forum on the low-level top-up funding which is being funded from reserves. Hampshire is retaining a contingency of £1m to alleviate any likely future pressures which can then be allocating under any heading.
Primary / Secondary school budgets
The DfE has tried to minimise the impact of low attainment based on the KS2 results. This will result in minimal turbulence.
IDACI – unit values have been adjusted as per the Schools Forum agreement. Officers have tried to minimise any turbulence but also revise the values to bring them in line with the values in the NFF. The link between deprivation and MFG means minimal changes for schools.
Lump Sum changes – reduce by £15,000 for both sectors for the coming year. The difference has been recycled back into the schools budget through AWPU and basic entitlement. This brings Hampshire closer in line with NFF.
Does the recycling of this money apply to all schools? Yes it applies to maintained and academies.
Schools Forum members noted that the disproportionate impact on small rural primary schools of the reduction in the lump sum will lead to many job losses in this sector and this should not be “glossed over”. Officers stated that they are very mindful of this and are pushing this point very hard in their responses to the DfE. Officers will begin working on the NFF once this budget is approved and are working with colleagues in other authorities with similar numbers of smaller schools. The strong push around absolute fairness of the NFF appears to have been reduced to reflect compromise for those low funded authorities. Schools Forum members noted that most primary school HTs are looking at their budgets going forward and are considering their staff numbers; the impact will be hard whatever the size of school. Officers stated that they are mindful that they need to get information around lump sum changes to schools as soon as possible to enable planning and working with HTs to look at how they support them.
Cllr Edgar reiterated that these are centrally imposed directives and encouraged governors and school leaders to make their views on the challenges they are facing known to their MPs.
MFG – this is reducing year on year. Only 67 schools will remain in MFG.
The uncommitted balance of reserves gives a little bit of flexibility for future issues.
There will be a letter going to schools inviting headteachers, governors and business managers to consultation events in March.

Schools Forum agreed the proposed budget allocations for 2017/18.

Schools Forum agreed to continue funding historic commitments as detailed in paragraph 5.6.

Maintained primary and secondary Schools Forum members voted separately to de-delegate services as detailed in paragraph 5.8.

Any other business
Andrew MInall stated that schools will be receiving a communication shortly about the impact of IR35 (a tax change which will impact on how schools employ temporary staff).
Schools Forum thanked Kathryn Stevens for her work with Schools Forum and wished her the best for her maternity leave.
Date of Next Meeting
21 March 2017, 2.30pm at Ashburton Hall, The Castle, Winchester.

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