Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from M Arnull, E Benbow, C Handy-Rivett, E Pate and N Topless.

Members to declare any interests in matters to be discussed at the meeting.

There were no interests declared at the meeting.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 17 January 2022.

Resolved that the minutes of the meeting held on 17th January 2022 be approved as a correct record.

Resolved that A Connop be appointed as the named substitute Member for J Barry with their term of office reflecting J Barry’s.

Approve the updates to the Scheme for the Financing of Schools

The Forum received a report which sought approval to the updates to the scheme for the Financing of Schools, as set out at Appendix 1 to the report.

Local authorities were required by the Department for Education (DfE) to publish schemes of financing setting out the financial relationship between them and the schools they maintained.

The consultation had launched on Friday 11 February and remained open until Monday 28th February 2022 providing two weeks for any comments or responses to be sent to the Schools Financial Team.

The consultation period was extended to the 4 March 2022 as one week of the original consultation period had covered the February half term holidays.

No comments had been received within the consultation period.

The Vice-Chair sought clarification on whether or not if a school who had had a service outsourced would need to notify the Local Authority (LA) if they changed the outsourced service to another provider. Or would it be the case that it would only need to be notified if outsourcing a particular service for the first time. R Kerr advised that she would need to check if that was a requirement, or not, but stated it would be good practice to notify the LA in any case. She would confirm at the next meeting.

The Vice-Chair recommended that, whatever the response on the above issue, it would be useful to include this information in Appendix 1 for clarity.

Resolved (10 voting in favour and 1 abstention) that the updates to the Scheme for the Funding of Schools, as set out in Appendix 1 to the report, be approved, subject to the above recommendation.

To note the contents of the report.

The Forum received a report for information which informed Members of the final school budget for the financial year 2022/23.

The Schools Block funding, which had been distributed through the main funding formula, was £304,201,538. This had been calculated as follows: -

The school funding model had finally been approved by the DfE in the second week of February 2022 and the Schools block element of funding was issued to schools on Thursday 17 February 2022. This included notification of the funding entitlement based on the agreed authority formula, minimum funding guarantee and adjustments for de-delegations and education functions for maintained schools.

The Schools Budget Information 2022/23, which included Early Years, Focus and non-focus Provision, and illustrative Pupil Premium Grants funding, had been released to schools on Monday 28 February 2022, as set out at Appendix 1 to the report.

The table, below, listed the factor rates for the local authority formula to be applied to school’s budgets for 2022/23.

The Vice-Chair enquired if school leaders could be sent more detailed information in the future to help schools plan their 3 year budgets whilst ensuring, as far as was practicable, that their reserves were set within the required parameters.

R Kerr advised that the LA only had the information made available to it by the DfE which was generally released on a phased basis. Most of the information was based on the estimated direction of travel. In view of this, the best the LA could do was to model various likely scenarios for information.

The Vice-Chair requested that Officers feedback to the DfE that providing more detailed information would enable schools to better prepare their 3 year budgets whilst managing their reserves more effectively and efficiently.

The Forum noted the contents of this report.

To note the contents of the report and the impact of the increased surplus on future years.

The Forum received a report for information in relation to the High Needs Block (HNB) monitoring position as at 31 January 2022, projected to 31 March 2022.

The HNB grant for 2021/22 reported to Schools Forum on 13 December 2021 was £53.555m.

The anticipated in year surplus previously reported to Forum in January 2022 was £1.735m. This had now been revised to an in-year surplus of £2.389m.

There had been a positive movement of £0.654m in the in-year surplus from the figures reported in January 2022 to those reported today. An explanation of the movement was shown in Table 1 below.

The balance bought forward as at 1st April 2021 was £0.597m surplus.

Appendix 1, to the report, showed the 2021/22 High Needs Block budget allocation, the actual expenditure as at 31 January 2022 and the variance from budget together with a short explanation of the variance.

Table 1, below, showed the movement in the in-year surplus.

The in-year anticipated surplus would be added to the brought forward from 2020/21 to give an estimated amount to carry forward into 2022/2023 of £2.986m.

This does not indicate that the HNB going forward was in a stable position. It meant that the anticipated deficit in future years would slip back but not be eradicated.

More forecasting would be provided when the final budgets for 2022/2023 had been finalised and cash flows could be produced.

Appendix 2, to the report, showed the Focus Provision and Special School commissioned places for the period 1/4/21 - 31/3/22 together with the average occupancy for the period 1/4/21-31/1/22 together with the funding for additional places over the financial year based on an annual average. It also showed the number of other LAs using Sandwell provisions. A provision for the in-year adjustment for place was already built into the original budget figures so had not resulted in a pressure.

The delegation to schools for 2021/2022 had been closed mid-February 2022 to amendments. Any changes between then and the end of the financial year would be made in 2022/23. Three of the four Special schools went over initial funded commissioned  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16/22

To note the contents of the report in relation to the information requested at previous meeting on the Primrose Centre, Sandwell Community School (SCS) and Albright Education Centre.

The Forum received a report with information on commissioned places, occupancy and funding for Primrose, Sandwell Community School (SCS) and Albright. In addition, average occupancy figures were as up to date as possible, at the time of compiling the report.

Primrose PRU

The Local Authority had commissions 25 places per year at £10K per place plus, Element 3 top up for 20 places at £11,920 per place for primary permanently excluded pupils. The additional 5 places were preventative places and top up was chargeable to schools who used the service.

Table 1, below, showed the funding for the Primrose Centre for 2021/22 funded through the HNB.

Table 2, below, showed the average occupancy for the period summer term 21, autumn term 21 and spring term 22 to date.

The number of permanently excluded places funded through the HNB for element 3 top up was reducing and pupils on preventative places were filling the vacancies.

Primrose charged schools £95 per day for a preventative place.

At the time of this report Primrose had 17 pupils on roll.

Sandwell Community School (SCS)

The Local Authority had commissions 180 places per year at £10K per place plus Element 3 Top up for 80 places at £7,346 per place for Secondary permanently excluded pupils. The additional 100 places were preventative places and top up was chargeable to schools who used the service.

Table 3, below, showed the funding for Sandwell Community School for 2021/22 funded through the HNB.

Table 4, below, showed the Average occupancy for the period, summer term 21, autumn term 21 and spring term 22 to date.

To approve both the increase of the Two-Year-old hourly rate from £5.38 to £5.59 and the increase of the Three and Four-year-old hourly rate from £4.06 to £4.23.

The Forum received a report which informed Members of the outcome of the consultation on the increase to the hourly rates for two year olds; and three and four old for the financial year 2022/23.

On 27 October 2021, the Chancellor had announced that the Government would invest additional funding for the early years entitlements for two, three and four year olds worth £160m in 2022 2023, £180m in 2023 - 2024 and £170m in 2024 - 2025, compared to the current year. This was for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to early years providers for the Government’s free childcare entitlement offers and reflected cost pressures, as well as anticipated changes in the number of eligible children. On the 25 November 2021 individual local authority rates had been published by the DfE.

The Education and Skills Agency (ESFA) issued in December 2021 the “Early years entitlements: local authority funding of providers – Operational guide 2022 to 2023”.

The guide had been issued to help local authorities follow the rules and principles when funding providers to deliver the early years entitlements in the financial year 2022 to 2023 as well as describing the basis of funding to local authorities.

Local authorities were required to consult providers on annual changes to their local formula.

The early years national funding formula hourly rates had increased by £0.21 per hour for two year olds and £0.17 per hour for three and four year olds.

On 1 February 2022 the Quality Early Years and Child Care Team had sent out the following consultation via email to 90 Day Care Providers and 99 Child Minders as they were providers who delivered the Two Year Old funding and the Nursery Education Funding in Sandwell’s Private Voluntary and Independent child care sector. The survey had also been sent to all Primary and Infant Schools.

On 27 October 2021, the Chancellor had announced that the Government would invest additional funding for the early years entitlements for two, three and four year olds worth £160m in 2022 2023, £180m in 2023 - 2024 and £170m in 2024 - 2025, compared to the current year. This was for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to early years providers for the Government’s free childcare entitlement offers and reflects cost pressures, as well as anticipated changes in the number of eligible children. On the 25 November 2021 individual local authority rates had been published by the DfE.

The Council was now consulting on the proposed funding increase for the financial year 2022 - 2023. To enable all providers who delivered on the early years entitlements to benefit from the increased funding, Sandwell MBC was proposing to use all of the additional funding to increase the basic hourly rate of pay for two-year olds and three and four-year olds and keep the additional payments of the single funding formula at the same rate as 2021 - 2022.

The proposed funding structure was as set out below: -

To note the contents of the report.

The Forum received a report which provide Members with information on the latest Dedicated schools Grant (DSG) allocation for 2021/22.

The table, below, sets out the authority’s latest indicative DSG allocations for 2021/22, as at January 2022.

The 2021/22 initial Indicative DSG allocation which had been presented to Schools Forum in January 2021 had changed as follows:

The deduction of academy recoupment by the Education Skills and Funding Agency (ESFA) £146.496m from the Schools Block.

The overall increase of £0.339m to the High Needs Block before recoupment was made up of the following:

·      Change in the Import/Export Adjustment from -£0.204m in December 2020 to +£0.141m; a movement of +£0.345m

·      Additional funding for Special Free Schools; a movement of -£0.006m

The December 2020 allocation notified of a recoupment amounting to £2.072m. A further increase of £0.450m resulting in a total recoupment of £2.522m for ESFA directly funded places notified in January 2022 was broken down as follows:

·      Decrease of 6 Pre-16 Focus provision places funded at £6,000 amounting to £0.021m in Mainstream Academies from September 2021.

·      Increase of 6 Pre–16 Focus provision places funded at £10,000 amounting to £0.035m in Mainstream Academies from September 2021.

·      Increase of 109 places from September 2021 in Further Education and Independent Learning Providers (£0.436m)

The overall decrease of £2.162m to the Early Years Block allocation; the change in funding consisted of the following:

·      A reduction in the number funded 3 and 4-year-olds universal entitlement 614 PTE amounting to £1.601m

·      A reduction of the number of funded 3 and 4-year-old additional 15 hours entitlement for eligible working parents; 95 PTE amounting to £0.248m

·      A reduction in the number of funded 2-year-old entitlement 111 PTE amounting to £0.343m

·      An increase in the indicative funding for early years pupil premium amounting to £0.030m

The Forum noted the contents of the report.

To note the contents of the report.

The Forum received a report which provided Members with the HNB 2022/23 Budget Information.

HNB Budget 2022/23

The HNB Provisional Grant for 2022/23 was £61.267m. After deductions of £3.130m, the grant available for distribution equated to £58.137m.

Table 1, below, showed the deductions of £3.130m which were made at source to the HNB and paid directly to the various educational establishments.

The deductions were revised during the year and notified to the LA if applicable. A further deduction was anticipated for High Point free school and would be met from the budgeted surplus.

HNB 2022/23 Budget Allocations

Table 2, below, showed the analysis of the 2022/23 HNB Allocation.

A more detailed breakdown could be found in Appendix 1 to the report. In addition, Appendix 2 to the report presented a more detailed breakdown of items 9 and 10 in Table 2.

Budgeted Specialist places

The HNB had budgeted for 1267 WTE Specialist Places in Sandwell Provisions across Special Schools, Mainstream Focus Provisions and PRUs.

This was an increase of 109 additional places from the 2021/22 budget that was reported to Schools Forum in June 2021.

Table 3, below, showed the places commissioned for the financial year 2022/23. These were whole time equivalents (WTE) where places had been commissioned from 1 September 2022.

Discussions were still taking place for specialist SEMH places and a nominal figure had been built into the budget to be prudent.

The Vice-Chair queried if the focussed provision being planned for September had already been allocated, or not, or if  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20/22

The Clerk advised that Officers had now met and drawn up a training schedule / allocated who would be writing which element.

Once drafted, the training material would be shared with the Chair and Vice-Chair in the first instance as a ‘sense-check’.

Once finalised, a date, or dates, would be agreed outside of the Forum business meetings to hold the training. The training material would also serve as an induction for new Members.

The Clerk advised that there were a number of outstanding positions as named Substitute Members on the Forum. The idea behind named Substitutes was that should a substantive Member need to submit their apology to a meeting, their named substitute would then be eligible to attend in their place and would hold the same voting rights. This would also reduce the likelihood of future meetings not being able to proceed where the quorum had not been achieved.

The Clerk advised that he would email all Members after the meeting with a briefing note on the process to get nominations for named Substitutes to be appointed to the Forum.

A Timmins sought nominations from amongst the following groups to sit on a Working Group to look at Union Facilities Time: -

• 1 x nomination from Primary Academy;

• 1 x nomination from Secondary Academy;

• 1 x nomination from Primary Maintained;

• 1 x nomination from Secondary Maintained;

Meetings were yet to be arranged and A Timmins would consult the appointed Members and advise on the agreed dates / times in due course.

Resolved that the following Members be appointed to the Working Group: -

1) J Barry (Primary Maintained)

2) L Bray (Primary Academy)

3) That the Secondary Maintained and Academy Members be contacted by A Timmins to determine who will be appointed to the remaining vacancies.

Date of next meeting: Monday 20 June 2022

The Clerk reported that the Terms of Office of both D Irish and M Arnull had been recommended by their respective Groups for another 4 year term. The Chair, therefore, sought authorisation from the Forum to approve the extension to the Terms of Office for both individuals.

Resolved (unanimously) that the Terms of Office of both D Irish and M Arnull be granted for a 4 year extension, effective from November 2021.

N.B. D Irish had left the meeting before this vote had occurred and therefore, did not take part in this vote.

The dates of future Forum meetings were noted, as set out below:-

20 June 2022

The Next Meeting of Schools Forum: 20th June 2022 @ 2.30pm.