Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Jim Thomson, Allan Symons, Denise Henry and Cllr Chris McHugh.

The Forum is asked to approve as a correct record the minutes of the last meeting held on 14 July 2016

The minutes of the meeting held on 14 July 2016 were agreed as a correct record.

Steve Horne, Care Wellbeing and Learning

The Forum received a report requesting funding for Show Racism the Red Card to provide anti-racism education workshops in schools. The total cost of the work would be just under £15,000, this would be rolled out to a selection of schools initially.

It was questioned whether the number of schools is limited by the capacity of the organisation and how this was funded previously.  It was confirmed that this was previously funded through capacity building fund, however this is no longer available for school delivery. It was noted that there is a certain amount of staff and there is currently a waiting list of schools so each local authority has been asked to identify tension areas. There are two routes of referral; either through a teacher or due to tension in the community and support is required, therefore it is targeted where need is most and is not a blanket approach.

The value of the workshops was acknowledged however it was suggested that this was not a decision for the Schools Forum and rather would be for a more strategic view at a Local Authority level. It was confirmed that this has been asked to come to the Forum as an attempt to ensure all schools benefit from it as it would be hoped the majority of pupils have access to it.

The point was made that needs would have to be assessed and that if incidents occur in the community there must be something additional than just the work in schools. It was confirmed that this is one element of a bigger strategy.

Carole Smith, Corporate Resources

The Forum received a report on the Early Year National Funding Formula (EYNFF) consultation and the draft response.  The consultation proposes to introduce a new early years national funding formula for three and four year olds and make sure that children with SEN attract extra funding. 

The funding formula to allocate funding to local authorities will be based on hourly base rate for existing 15-hour entitlement for all three and four year olds and additional 15 hours for children of working parents.  Additional needs funding will be based on; free school meal eligibility, English as an Additional Language and Disability Living Allowance. This will then be multiplied by an Area Cost Adjustment for Gateshead. It was noted that parameters have been proposed so that no local authority can lose more than 10% or gain more than 22.9%. 

It was reported that there will be transitional protection for nursery schools for at least two years proposed by the DfE, to acknowledge the higher costs of nursery schools provision.

The consultation proposes that local formulas are standardised, for example local authorities must pass at least 93% of funding to providers, this rises to 95% in 2018/19. In addition there must be a universal base rate of funding to all providers of 89.5% of available funding by 2019/20. The DfE are proposing a limited number of additional factors can be part of a local authorities formula, these include; deprivation, sparsity, efficiency, flexibility and delivery of additional 15 hours.  It is proposed that there is a 10% cap on the total value of the supplements. It is also proposed that the DLA funding is ring-fenced and will be given as an annual amount.

The consultation proposes that an Inclusion Fund be set up by local authorities for SEN children. It was noted that a set of procedures would be needed in order for this to work efficiently and transparently. It also proposes that services can be delivered by local authorities to providers free at the point of use if the Inclusion Fund is used to support local services.

It was noted that there has been no detailed modelling as of yet of the possible impact on Gateshead settings, however if the proposals are implemented the resulting funding formula would mean the only nursery school in Gateshead would no longer be viable and would be detrimental to the maintained sector.

The Forum agreed to the response and agreed to establish a subgroup to review the EYSFF and that this be open to non-Schools Forum members.

RESOLVED    -           (i)         That the Schools Forum agreed the consultation

response to be submitted in its name.

                                    (ii)        That the Schools Forum agreed to form a subgroup to

start work on the need of a new EYSFF for Gateshead.

Carole Smith, Corporate Resources

The Forum received the updated wording for Gateshead’s Contingency Criteria, to include updated legislation in relation to schools causing concern. 

The point was made that there is not a clear duty to provide funding to these schools and it was questioned how allocations for academies and maintained schools are done on a similar basis.  It was confirmed that each application is assessed on its own merits and the procedures applied. It was questioned what is the objective criteria as in maintained schools the local authority may have asked for a school to do something, whereas for academies this would be the Secretary of State. It was acknowledged that this would not make a difference as it is about Gateshead children rather than individual schools.

It was suggested that reference to the percentage of surplus balance should be removed from the criteria as well as point six; in-year allocations to schools in respect of the admission of pupils permanently excluded by other schools.

RESOLVED    -           That the Schools Forum approved the proposed changes,

including the above amendments, to Gateshead’s Contingency Criteria.

Carole Smith, Corporate Resources

The Forum received report outlining the school funding announcements that have been made by the DfE. 

RESOLVED    -           That the Schools Forum noted the contents of the report

detailing announced funding arrangements for 2017/18.

Carole Smith, Corporate Resources

A report was presented showing analysis produced by the DfE on values and funding factors used by other local authorities, this has allowed Gateshead to be benchmarked.

It was reported that in terms of primary basic entitlement Gateshead is mid nationally but high in relation to regional and statistical neighbours. KS3 and KS4 basic entitlement is low in comparison to the national picture.

It was noted that 122 local authorities use IDACI as a deprivation measure. Primary FSM average funding was lower than regional neighbours and higher than statistical neighbours. Secondary FSM was third regionally and second against statistical neighbours.

Prior attainment funding is relatively low in comparison to all groups and EAL is low, particularly in the primary sector.  Also, in comparison Gateshead has a high mobility factor.  14 local authorities used the maximum lump sum and Gateshead was in the middle in terms of primary lump sum and slightly lower in the secondary sector.

In terms of the primary: secondary ratio Gateshead was ranked ninth and seventh respectively again regional and statistical neighbours.  In relation to notional SEN Gateshead was in the middle compared to the national picture.

The Forum agreed that the report was useful and interesting to see comparisons.

It was proposed that a sub-group be set up to review the data, agree areas to review and model potential outcomes.  Steve Haigh, Chris Richardson, Mustafaa Malik, Ken Childs, Sarah Diggle and Andy Ramanandi volunteered to sit on the sub-group. Dates for the sub-group will be set up prior to the next Schools Forum.

RESOLVED    -           That the Schools Forum noted the contents of the report and

agreed the suggested areas to be reviewed for Gateshead’s mainstream Schools Fair Funding Formula for the financial year 2017/18.

Thursday 13 October 2016 at 2.00pm

The date and time of the next meeting is Thursday 13 October 2016 at 2.00pm.