Apologises were received from Adam Tapp, Clive Star, Adam Morris and James Evans.

It was noted that Adam Tapp had registered an email vote on Item 4 Consideration of allocation of 2014/15 Dedicated Schools Grant Projected Underspend.

No changes to Membership of School Forum were recorded.

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the School Forum meeting held on 4^th December 2014.

The Minutes of the meeting of the Schools’ Forum held on 4^th December 2014  were checked for accuracy and amendments made:

Item 4: TESS : remove £20k matched funded by LA

Item 4: CAMHS 3/4 tier : amend lead by Steve Margetts to which will be attended by Steve Margetts

Item 5: Paragraph 2: amend CAMHS as 3 year programme not 5

Item 6: Fair Funding –

It was agreed that any future underspend would be dealt with by School Forum at that time.

School Forum noted the previous actions from the meeting on 4^th December –

Item 5 (i) The Principle of the Devon Studio School has been informed that they can access services in TESS and CAMHS at no cost

Lisa Finn, Finance Manager, outlined the proposals for the use of the  2014/15 projected underspend for Early Years (£600k) as suggested by School Forum on 4^th December 2014.

School Forum were asked to endorse the recommendations on the two proposals:-

1.    Early Years Deprivation Payment is made available to 2 year olds as a one off payment within this financial year and the provider rate is increased to £300 per child

2.    Early Years Entitlement Grant for 3 and 4 year olds – PVI sector is increased by 2% to £4.08 per hour per child

School Forum recognised the importance of ensuring the sustainability of placements with independent and voluntary nursery providers and delivery of high quality provisions for 3 and 4 year old providers.

School Forum voted unanimously in favour of both the Early Years proposals.

3.    Allocation of £400k to Schools and Academies – School Forum considered and questioned two options for allocating the remaining DSG.  A table illustrated Proposal 1 using pupil numbers from the October 2013 census (amount per pupil £24.04) and Proposal 2 distributed using each school’s original 2014/15 funding allocation as a percentage of the overall funding allocation of £78m (amount per percentage £4,000).

The Chair asked School Forum to vote to endorse and agree either Proposal 1 or 2. 

Results of vote

School Forum endorsed the recommendation that the remaining DSG should be allocated by using the pupil numbers from the October 2013 census.

ii) Virtual School: The Chair has been requested by the Director of Children’s Services for School Forum to consider proposals for resourcing another Virtual School Primary Teacher.  It was agreed that these proposals should be discussed at the next School Forum on 5^th March 2015.

Actions:

i)             Children’s Finance Team to implement and distribute the recommendations of School Forum in relation to Early Years and further allocation to schools and academies of any underspend (LF)

ii)            Virtual School: Director of Children’s Services to submit a report outlining the proposal for School Forum funding an additional primary school teacher(RW)

Lisa Finn, Finance Manager, introduced a paper outlining the  2015/16 DSG funding. 

It was noted that the DSG is paid as a ring-fenced specific grant specifically used to support the schools budget as defined in the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2014.  It cannot be used for any other purpose and is overseen by the Chief Finance Officer, whose role is to ensure compliance with the section 251 outturn statement.

School Forum noted that:-

i)             Torbay has received a provisional DSG allocation of £89.8m (a net increase of £1.449m funding after the removal of the new funding of £690k for Devon Studio School)

ii)            The early years pupil premium is now included in the overall DSG funding totals (£300k per pupil)

iii)            Pupil Numbers: increase by 11 (reduction in secondary phase)

iv)           Induction for newly qualified teachers: NQT statutory induction will move into the DSG from local government revenue funding

v)            Funding for early education places for 2 year olds from lower income households – initial allocations for 2015/15 announcements in June 2015

vi)           Early Years Pupil Premium – EFA survey in Autumn 2015 to check take up

vii)         High Needs block includes top-up funding for pupils and students aged 0-24 years

viii)        National copyright licences – Torbay schools will no longer need to negotiate individual licences which will be managed by the EFA directly

Action

i)             Children’s Services Finance Team to notify all schools about the changes to the National Copyright Licences (LF)

The next meeting of the School Forum will be 5^th March 2015