Services for Education Newsletter No.2May 2012

Consultation Meeting 12th June 2012

  • Whilst there is considerable progress to report in some areas there is one area where things are not moving as quickly as we had hoped and expected. That area is gaining Admitted Body Status into the Local Government and Teachers’ Pension schemes. This would mean that we all continue to be included in our current pension scheme and is clearly of crucial importance to all employees and the company itself. Applications have been made and we are confident that we will be successful. However, delays within the Council and the pension schemes themselves have meant there is no significant progress to report. As you know we had arranged a formal consultation meeting for 12th June where a discussion around pension issues would have been an important part of the agenda. Without anything meaningful to report we feel that the meeting would be better postponed until later on in the term. Please therefore remove the 12th June meeting from your diaries. We will circulate another date in due course.

Good News

  • The Music Service has been successful in its bid to lead the Birmingham Music Education Hub which brings Central Government grant funding of over £4 million between September 2012 and March 2015. Schools are signing up to the greatly expanded Whole Class Instrumental Teaching programme, (we expect to have 10,000 Yr 4 pupils involved from September), and the Primary Consortia are enthusiastically embracing our Vocal Strategy which is to be delivered by Ex Cathedra.
  • The Health Education Servicehas secured funding from both The KRAFT Foundation and Public Health to support schools.
  • The Learning & Assessment Serviceis working closely with the Greet Primary School Teaching Alliance, with Kim Wheeler working directly with the Alliance for 2 days each week. This gives us an excellent opportunity to strengthen the links and collaborative working between the service and the Alliance

We have received very positive feedback from a number of Headteachers (including the Chair of Primary Forum) about the quality and responsiveness of the service.

Serena Caine (Early Years Consultant) has returned from her maternity leave and rejoins the team. Serena's return is well timed as schools are now considering the new Early Years Foundation Stage framework for implementation in September 2012.

School and Settings Improvement team continue to commission the service to fulfil statutory responsibilities for both assessment and NQTs.

Progress So Far

  • The Board of Directors has held its first meeting and the Articles of Association for the new company agreed. The following potential directors have expressed a willingness to serve and we are finalising the formalities of their appointment:

Martin Chitty –Partner, Wragge & Co. LLP

Jackie Hughes – Diocesan Director of Education, Church of England in Birmingham

Sally Taylor – Service Director : Education & Commissioning, BirminghamCity Council

Mick Waters – President : The Curriculum Foundation

The remaining vacancies will be filled by a director with an accountancy background, and a serving Birmingham head teacher nominated by the Schools Advisory Group (see below).

The Board’s key initial tasks will be to:

  • Formally constitute itself so all legal requirements are met.
  • Support the application for Admitted Body Status into the pension schemes.
  • Apply for charitable status.
  • Payroll, HR, Finance, and Insurance – Services for Educationhas purchased the services of a company called Strictly Education to manage its payroll and HR function. They will also be supporting aspects of the company’s finance and insurance. It is the expectation that the change of payroll provider from BCC to Strictly Education will be seamless, with all employees continuing to receive their salaries and payslips on the 28th of each month.
  • Legal Representation – The company has secured its legal services and advice from Anthony Collins Solicitors.
  • Accommodation – We are required to leave the Portland Centre by 1st December 2012. We have begun the task of viewing alternative accommodation. Ideally we would like any new premises to be in the central/south part of the city. So far we have viewed properties in Kings Heath, Moseley, Edgbaston, and Longbridge. All have had pros and cons but none so far have been ideal for our purposes. The lack of adequate car parking, in particular, is becoming an issue. Once we have a shortlist of suitable properties representatives from each service will be invited to join us on a viewing.
  • Infrastructure - Admin., finance and other support functions are currently provided by individual teams within the three component services of Services for Education. For many functions this makes absolute sense as people build up specialist knowledge of the service in which they work. However, there may be some functions which are better delivered across all three services. For example invoicing, the ordering of stationery etc... We need to define more closely:

(a)What the admin. needs of the new company will be. And,

(b)How they are best delivered, by whom, and where from.

To help us in this process we have asked a consultant to undertake a review of our current support functions and how they might need to be adapted and augmented to meet the new and changing needs of Services for Education.

  • Schools Advisory Group - Services for Education is keen to provide good quality, value for money services to schools in a way which matches their needs. In order to be able to do this we need some sort of sounding board to be able to keep in touch with the changing needs and requirements of schools. We have established a Schools Advisory Group to be that sounding board. Its membership will comprise of:

1 secondary school head teacher rep – Elaine Kenny : HeadTeacherSwanshurstSchool.

1 primary school head teacher rep. – Sarah Smith : Head Teacher St. John’s CE B11

1 nursery school head teacher rep - Vacant

1 special school head teacher rep – Susan Brandwood : Head Teacher The Pines School

1 governor rep. – David Griffiths : Chair of Governors Plantsbrook Academy

1 x bursars' rep. – Matthew Wheeler : Business ManagerHodgeHillSchool

  • ICT – the new company will need tomake its own arrangements forcomputer hardware and software, internet and intranet, email, telephony etc. We are working on the basis that we will continue to work with Service Birmingham to meet the ICT needs of the new company. It is anticipated that all staff will receive their own email address along the lines
  • Systems – the new company has purchased a product known as Paritor to manage school orders and produce invoices for the Music Service. It is being adapted to do the same for Health and Learning & Assessment. The company’s book-keeping will be managed by Sage software, the industrial standard accounting software.

And finally…………..

  • You are strongly advised to keep in close contact with you Trades Union and Teachers’ Association representatives. We meet with them on a weekly basis and it is important that they are aware of your views and any concerns you may have over this transfer.
  • Please address any other questions to your Head of Service in the first instance.
  • Progress is likely to accelerate from now on. We will publish updates at least on a monthly basis, and more frequently should the need arise.
  • If you have any suggestions that would assist the new company in any way please forward them to so they can be taken into account with all other considerations.

David Perkins

Strategic Head of Services to Schools

Services for Education

Head of Service : David Perkins

Portland Centre

304 Portland Road

Edgbaston

Birmingham

B17 8LR

Email:

Telephone: 07968 136616