To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 9 February 2012.

To consider a report on the above.

The Chairman was advised that the Forum was not Quorate with only 6 Members present.

The Chairman introduced Rob Parr from Finance to the meeting who was attending on behalf of Lisa Finn.  He tabled an additional supplementary paper which was circulated with the permission of the Chairman, on Comparison of Special School Allocations between 11/12 & 12/13.

The Head of School Commissioning advised the Forum that the predicted forecasts on 2012/13 Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) were accurate and gave thanks to the Finance Team for producing the final pupil numbers in February on a very tight turn around.

2012/13 DSG is calculated using the Guaranteed Unit of Funding (GUF) multiplied by the number of pupils in January 2012 census.  The GUF for Torbay in 2012/13 is £4,841.97 per pupil.

Using the pupil numbers provided the DSG for 2012/13 is £84,245,000.

The amount allocated via school funding formula has risen due to predicted higher numbers of pupils in nursery/early years and higher levels of statementing funding, increased premises and more places in special schools and the protection of the Minimum Funding Guarantee (MFG).

Key points noted by the Forum were that Special School numbers were up from 309 in 2011/12 to 323.5, PRU/EOTAS/Others were up from 84.0 to 97.0 and Nursery up from 1055.7 to 1078.7.

Carbon-Tax premium for all schools including academies is £90k – if schools reduce their energy usage this figure will reduce.  Unfortunately, as schools usage is not reducing, this figure will continue to rise. NNDR revaluations are £273k.  New buildings have their rates re-evaluated and the cost increases.  Academies receive rate relief.

There are increased costs of statements in schools to £86k, increased allocations for FSM to £121k, and increased numbers on EOTAS at £60k due to the increase to 25 hours per week.  An increase in costs for very specialist SEN provision in independent special schools by £120k as we cannot currently cater for this within Torbay.

There are likely to be changes in the levels of transience funding and this will seriously affect schools in Torbay.   There is expected to be an announcement from Government on 26 March 2012 and local discretion will be limited.

Contributions to redundancy costs will no longer be required with more schools becoming academies and pupil numbers being buoyant within the Bay so pupil driven redundancies will be a thing of the past.

There is the additional pressure for 2012/13 of planned pupil growth for an additional 60 reception pupils across 3 Torquay primary schools from September 2012 - £80k. This is due to an increased birth rate in Torbay and increasing numbers of applications to primary schools.

Nationally the funding for Pupil Premium has gone up. This is the second year of this funding stream.  The 2011/12 allocation was based upon the number of pupils eligible for free school meals based upon the January pupil census.  For 2012/13, this has been altered to take into account the number of pupils in a school from the 2012 January pupil  ...  view the full minutes text for item 491.

Thursday 8 November 2012

Thursday 7 February 2013

Thursday 21 March 2013