Agenda item

(To receive a report by Mark Popplewell, Strategic Finance Lead – Children's Services, which seeks approval from the maintained primary school representatives of the Forum to the Local Authority's (LA) proposals for the de-delegation of certain budgets in 2024/25 and 2025/26)

Consideration was given to a report by the Strategic Finance Lead – Children’s Services, which sought approval from the maintained primary representatives of the Forum on the LAs proposals for the de-delegation of certain budgets in 2024/25 and 2025/26.

The cumulative underspend reported at 31 March 2023 was £1.396m, this included an in-year underspend of £0.518m, which was largely related to the termination of employment costs for maintained schools in financial difficulties. Last year, the primary maintained Forum members supported a number of measures to improve education standards in schools, which were progressing. The Council proposed to continue supporting improved education standards and had identified £0.500m from the cumulative underspend to facilitate this. Plans are being developed in how it can support leaders to monitor and assess the performance of children, along with key strategies to secure effective intervention strategies more effectively.

The remaining balance of £0.347m would be retained to ensure certainty in the de-delegation amounts for maintained primary schools where unexpected costs arise due to the delivery of services.

The de-delegation budget for 2023/24 was agreed by members of the Forum in the October 2022 meeting, which would finance; termination of employment costs, primary maintained Locality Lead support, Intervention Funding and the Ethnic Minority and Traveller Education Team.

For 2024/25 the Council proposes to continue operating a hybrid model with capacity provided by the School Improvement central team to maintained primary schools, including those in financial difficulties. It was proposed the current contingency rate of £29.23 per pupil will continue in 2024/25.

The remaining service budget of EMTET, which was made up of staffing costs and therefore requires a fixed budget.

It is proposed that the charges for 2025/26 would continue to be set at the baseline amounts per pupil for the de-delegation budget.

Details of the service provision funded through the de-delegation budgets were detailed in Appendix A.

Consideration was given to the report and during the discussion the following points were recorded:

• In relation to value for money for primary maintained schools, locality lead support and intervention funding had significant impact in the rapid improvement of schools where it otherwise would not have been possible due to financial constraints of school. The risk of withdrawing the funding offer from schools would be significant for schools in financial difficulty, given the impact it could make. Locality leads monitored the outcomes of any intervention very closely and evaluated the impact of money spent.
• The Forum commended the work of the locality leads and highlighted the impactful role they played in school transformations and in head teacher recruitment.
• The level of need and impact was highlighted by members of the Forum who had seen schools benefit from the intervention fund.
• The Forum were pleased to see evidence of successful intervention and on average a higher percentage of pupils achieving Reading, Writing and Maths above the expected standard and in comparison with Academies, and asked that learning be shared with Academy Schools. Data on academies the percentage of pupils achieving Reading, Writing and Maths above the standards for Academy Schools was agreed to be circulated.
• It was recognised that many vulnerable maintained schools in great difficulty often ended up as Academy Trusts, which could skew the data for Academy figures.
• The Forum highlighted the impact made by the fund and supported the proposals in the report.

The Maintained Primary School Representatives were invited to vote on the proposals and it was proposed, seconded and

RESOLVED:

1. That the proposals for the use of de-delegation reserve be approved.
2. That the de-delegation of the budgets for the period 2024/25 and 2025/26 (in principle), as set out in the report, be approved.