Local democracy

Agenda item

MINUTES OF 7 JULY 2021 & MATTERS ARISING

That the minutes of the meeting held on 7 July 2021 be signed as a correct record.

 

 

Minutes:

The Business Advisor (Schools) reported on progress made on “Action” items from the 7 July meeting:

 

·         Item 561 Chair and Vice Chair Nominations / Elections: The agreed process for the collection of nominations was completed. The only nominations put forward were for Dianne Richardson as Chair and for Ian Morrel as Vice Chair. As a result, an election was not required. Dianne and Ian continue in their positions for the 2021/22 academic year. The Business Advisor explained that the Authority will wish to talk to the Forum about appropriate Chair hand-over arrangements soon within the coming year (as Dianne has stated that she will be retiring from the Schools Forum in July 2022).

 

·         Item 562 Schools Forum Membership: An update on this matter is provided under agenda item 6.

 

·         Item 563 DSG Outturn Balances: The agreed Central Schools Services Block to Schools Block balances adjustment has been actioned. The Forum will receive, in December, a report on 2021/22 spending and forecasted March 2022 balances by block.

 

·         Item 565 SLT Review: The Speech and Language Therapy High Needs Block budget adjustment has been actioned.

 

·         Item 566 Early Years Block: The Business Advisor reported thatthe spring term 2021 Early Years Single Funding Formula (EYSFF) adjustments have been fully actioned. The Authority has also now confirmed summer 2021 EYSFF funding with providers. The Authority submitted the required additional return to the DfE to facilitate the adjusted Early Years Block methodology for the summer term. The Authority is now preparing for the autumn term EYSFF processes, which will be based on the October Census. An update on the forecasted position of spending and pressure within the Early Years Block in 2021/22 will be presented to the Schools Forum in December. Introductory discussion on the EYSFF for 2022/23 is presented under agenda item 9.

 

·         Item 568 Formula Funding Development 2022/23: An update on this is presented under agenda items 8 and 9.

 

The Business Advisor (Schools) reported on a number of additional matters arising:

 

·         Following the discussion and feedback provided in the July Forum meeting, subject to conditions and facilities, we are looking to establish a form of ‘hybrid’ approach to Schools Forum meetings, where we would have a mixture of meetings held remotely and face-to-face (in attendance at City Hall). A possible approach will be for the more ‘substantial’ meetings (where decisions are needed or where more detailed DSG discussion is anticipated) to be held in attendance, and for the meetings, which are more about information, update and awareness, to be held remotely. This may mean that, typically, we would look to hold in attendance meetings at City Hall in October, December and January, and that the other meetings in the normal calendar (September, March, May and July) would be held remotely, subject to conditions and facilities. The Schools Forum indicated its support for this approach to meetings in the 2021/22 academic year.

 

·         As we have done in previous years, the Authority would like to warn primary-phase maintained school representatives that, because of the timescales needed to confirm subscription, Members will be asked at the next meeting on 13 October whether they wish to de-delegate for the purposes of subscribing to Fischer Family Trust next year. As such, it will be helpful for them to have collected feedback from colleagues in advance of this. We will send an email to relevant members following this meeting to help.

 

·         Scheme for Financing Schools – As was reported in July, the DfE published at the beginning of April its annual update to the model template for Authority Schemes, in respect of maintained schools. There were no changes to the provisions in the Scheme that required our response or consultation with the Schools Forum. We still await changes and guidance in a couple of areas a) leases (IFRS 2016) and b) Related Party Transactions (RPTs) and the Schools Financial Value Standard (SFVS). We may be required to present proposals for Scheme amendments to the Forum in the autumn. Maintained schools will need to take action to respond to the new requirements in respect of RPTs during this year. The Authority has previously warned maintained schools about this.

 

·         Business Rates Payments Change: The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has now confirmed that the national changes proposed to how payments to billing authorities from mainstream primary and secondary schools and academies for business rates (NNDR) are managed will be implemented from April 2022. These are directed changes, that have implications for how rates charges are physically paid to billing authorities, how the ‘cash moves around the system’, and in Bradford most significantly for academies (that will not be physically required to pay their business rates charges). These changes however, do not alter how schools and academies materially are funded for business rates through the Dedicated Schools Grant nor do these alter the requirement for business rates to be recorded as expenditure within individual school and academy accounts. Guidance will be provided in due course on how the business rates payment changes will be managed in Bradford from April 2022 and we encourage all schools and academies now to read the ESFA’s consultation outcomes document.

 

·         Budget and Autumn Spending Review: For Members’ awareness, the Budget and Spending Review are to be presented on 27 October. These are anticipated to give us more information (albeit probably only at a high level) about the direction of schools, early years and high needs funding for the next 3 years. Hopefully, these will accompany the release of more detailed information about early years funding for 2022/23 and will also provide a bit more clarity on the position of key policies that will affect school and provider budgets, most especially the direction of national teacher pay policy from September 2022.

 

To clarify also, the recent announcement of the 1.25% increase in National Insurance for the NHS and social care is being applied to both employees and to employers. The employer’s contribution will increase at April 2022 from 13.8% to 15.05%, applied above the threshold. Salaries costs therefore, will increase additionally as a result of this change from April 2022. We will need to bring this into our thought processes for the 2022/23 DSG budget setting cycle. One of the key areas of immediate concern is how the NI increase will impact on the early years sector, where increases in funding rates for 2022/23 may not be at the level that will be seen by schools and high needs. *

 

* Added for clarity - the Government has stated that public sector employers will be compensated for the cost of the 1.25% NI levy. Following our enquiry, the ESFA has advised the Authority that further details on the approach to this compensation will be set out at the conclusion of the Spending Review on 27 October.

 

 

Supporting documents: