Minutes of Meeting of FINANCE & RESOURCES COMMITTEE
GREEN PAPER
winstanleycollege
Approved Minutes: 13 June 2011
Minutes of meeting ofFINANCE & RESOURCES COMMITTEE
Date of meetingMonday 14March 2011
VenueConference Room
AttendeesMark Hage,Robin Atkinson,Gordon Best,Mark Hanrahan, Tom Nixon,
Conor Edwards (Director of Finance & Estates) and Charlotte Fitch
ApologiesJoanna Bailey
By Invitation:David Rosbottom (Chair of the Board)
DistributionAll governors, Mel Chadwick (Vice Principal) Conor Edwards (Director of Finance & Estates), Sue Edgerton (PA to the Principal)
Meeting opened at 18.10
In the absence of the Chair who had been unavoidably delayed, the Vice Chair, Mark Hage took the meeting.
In his opening remarks, the Chair welcomed James Pearson to his first Finance & Resources meeting.
1. Declaration of Interest
Mark Hanrahan declared an interest in item 7, the College Estate given that as a director of NOMENCA there was the potential for a perceived conflict of interest if a subsidiary company bid for the building contract for the Music, media and performing arts building. Governors discussed the potential for a conflict and sought the advice of the Clerk in this matter. It was agreed that in order to protect both the individual and the College, the governor should take no part in the discussion and should withdraw from the discussions related to item 7.
Other governors had no interests to declare which would conflict with the items on the agenda.
2. Apologies for absence
Apologies were submitted by Joanna Bailey.
3. Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes from the previous meeting held on 15 November 2010 were accepted as an accurate record by the two members present at this meeting. The minutes were proposed and seconded and duly signed by the Chair.
4. Matters Arising
Whilst all the matters pertaining to the annual accounts had been resolved and the Board had duly approved them the Clerk reminded governors that they had agreed to reflect further on the committee’s self assessment process.
It was agreed that a move away from a narrative report was desirable and that governors should take greater ownership of their self assessment. In taking ownership of self assessment governors discussed a number of options and agreed the following strategy.
At the end of each meeting the Chair would seek a response to the following three questions:
- Does the Committee deal with its business appropriately?
- Has the committee complied with its terms of reference?
- What opportunities are there for further development and improvement of meetings? At this point governors will be asked to feedback some comments enabling a statistical collection of information to be put together and discussed at the end of a cycle of business.
The questions to take the form of a short questionnaire with a scale demonstrating how well aspects have been achieved (quantitative data) for the three questions and a comments box which would inform future actions.
5. Finance & Funding
5.1 Student Data
The Finance Director reported to governors that as at the 1st February census date 1871 students were attending College. This figure represented 99.3% of the total figure enrolled on courses at 1st November 2010. Retention remained strong although there had been a loss of 0.1% of students compared to 2009-10 which was not a cause for concern.
The funding agency continued to track numbers at the College and a review of student numbers was a sensible and robust mechanism for ensuring that the funding was secure. It was important that both management and governors reviewed this data.
At this point in the meeting, the Finance Director drew attention to the January management accounts which showed the College’s financial position at the half year point. KPIs were robust and income and expenditure were going according to plan. In response to a question about lagged funding and the number of students who elected to do a third year to improve on a poor examination performance, this was not considered to be a problem or an issue, with few students choosing a third year of study unless they were Art Foundation students.
5.2 Actual Out turn against financial forecast July 2010
The Finance Director presented his report comparing the year end financial statements position for 31 July 2010 with the information which had been forecast to governors in the month end management accounts for 31 July 2010. Governors were reminded that this was good practice and is an opportunity for them to compare actual versus forecast as an indicator of assurance. In the figures presented to governors the Finance Director had again underestimated income and the surplus and overestimated expenditure. Interestingly the gap between the estimates and actual is narrow and the actual results are still better than forecast.
Congratulating the Finance Director on a very satisfactory scenario, governors agreed that this was a useful comparative exercise.
5.3 Benchmarking – Comparison of College’s Annual Accounts with PRD group of Colleges.
The Finance Director presented a report comparing the 2010 financial statements information against the three colleges in the PRD group. This report enables governors to consider value for money and overall financial performance indicators for Winstanley College as compared against comparable colleges in the sixth form sector. The ensuing discussion allowed governors to raise questions which are not always obvious when looking at the College’s accounts in isolation and gives some useful benchmarks.
The Finance & Resources Committee having examined the data are satisfied that the College continues to meet its KPIs and performed well in 2009-10
6. Risk Management Plan
The Committee was asked to consider the College’s termly review of its RMP for the autumn term. Given the changing financial landscape and the coalition government’s spending cuts the committee examined in some detail the likely impact of the removal of EMAs which affected approximately a quarter of the student population combined with the increase in GMPTE bus fares. The concern was that some students might find it difficult to continue to attend the College and students considering the College as an option for entry in September 2011 might be dissuaded from coming due to the increasing transport costs. The link between achievement and part time working for students was also raised as a concern.
It was agreed that through the SMT and the RMP this risk would be monitored. Governors asked that a breakdown of students by area be presented at the September meeting. There was an expectation that this risk should continue to be monitored. Any future provision in the East of the Borough had the potential to mitigate some of the concern re travel to learn journeys.
7. The College Estate
To be taken at the end of the meeting.
8. Health and Safety
The Finance & Resources Committee received the Health and Safety report and were satisfied that the College continued to deliver on its health and safety responsibilities and is proactive in this area. A copy of the SHEQ report undertaken by Mark Hanrahan for the College and the subsequent action plan was submitted to governors. The monitoring of this action plan which replaced the former visits by LSC will be reported to this committee via the Health and Safety report. The Chair specifically asked that the minute record the College’s and governors thanks to Mark Hanrahan for undertakingthis important review of H&S.
9. Policies
The Finance & Resources Committee considered the three policies submitted for approval. During discussions governors sought to obtain an assurance that in respect of the non renewal of temporary contracts, paternity leave and the recruitment policy all satisfied employment and equality law.
In respect of the recruitment policy governors were advised that Equality legislation prevents an employer from asking questions about attendance at interview. The College has sought to mitigate this risk by accelerating its induction process and enabling a move to capability procedures, if there is a concern about say attendance, so thataction can be taken in a period not exceeding 12 months.
It was agreed that the personnel department would be asked to confirm that these policies satisfied legal requirements.
RECOMMENDATION
The Finance & Resources Committee, having proposed and seconded each of the three policies wishes to recommend that the Board approve the Publication Scheme, Paternity Leave Policy and Staff Recruitment Policy.
19.05 Robin Atkinson arrived at this point in the meeting.
10. Training
The Chair asked members of the committee whether they wished to access any particular training in support of their role as members of F&R. It was reported that James Pearson had attended induction training at CENTRA.
Training courses for governors in respect of funding and the lagged funding model was cited as one area of interest. It was agreed that the Clerk would discuss this with the Staff Development Officer and relevant courses would be drawn to governors’ attention.
19.40 At this point in the meeting, Mark Hanrahan having declared an interest in the discussions about the new build left the meeting taking no further part in the discussions or counting towards the quorum because of the potential for a perceived or actual conflict of interest.
Item 7. The College Estate (19.40 – 20.00)
The Director of Finance & Estates explained the two approaches to the Accommodation Strategy which were being addressed at present. The first being the continuation, subject to governor approval of the design and build of a building to house the music, media studies and performing arts
departments. Pick Everard, the College’s design and architectural team had submitted their feasibility report entitled ‘Bringing together media and music for youth’. Copies of this report had been sent to governors.
Governors had the opportunity to scrutinise the report and satisfy themselves that the design addressed the needs of the College. The expected total cost at this stage was in the region of £2.3m of which the College would be self financing.
An amount of money was being made available to the sixth form sector for a grant towards the cost of refurbishing colleges to support planned maintenance. The Chair of the Board confirmed that as a member of the Sfcf national committee he had been advised of the nature of the applications.
The College having already identified a number of planned maintenance projects was now seeking to apply for a building condition improvement grant to support this work. Applications had to be with the YPLA by 22 March 2011.
RECOMMENDATION
The Finance & Resources Committee having received reports in support of the new build and the application to the YPLA for a building condition improvement grant wishes to seek Board approval for the following:
Replacement of Music, Media Studies and Performing Arts Block
The committee recommends acceptance of the feasibility report from Pick Everard in respect of the music, media and performing arts building and advises continuation of this project to stage D, detailed design.
The F&R committee expects to receive regular reports in respect of this project at each meeting in terms of the actual spend against forecast and will monitor the situation closely.
The Committee also seeks Board approval for delegated authority to approve each stage of the programme without the necessity of always referring back to Board. The Board will be kept informed of progress and expenditure via reports from this committee.
Building Condition Improvement Grant
In respect of the building condition improvement grant, an application will be submitted to the YPLA in respect of three areas of planned maintenance and design.
Over roofing of the 1950s flat roofs
Installation of new biomass boiler
Design of existing physics and LRC accommodation
The College has been advised that due to the condition and importance of these buildings they may well qualify for the condition improvement grant.
11. Date of next meeting
The next meeting of the Finance & Resources Committee would be held on Monday 13June 2011.
There being no further business the open part of the meeting closed at 20.00.
Charlotte Fitch, Clerk to the Governors 15 March 2011
Signed (Chair) ______
Date______
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