Rob Parr presented to the board the forecast year end position. 

The four main areas of concern remain the same as thestandard forecast year end position that comes to each meeting.  Currently the forecast is £1.409 million overspend.  Last time at the forum it was £1.344. The areas are: - 

* South Devon College placements 

*Independent School Placements 

*EOTAS packages  

*EHCP in year adjustments for schools. 

Torbay have since had the December figure come through for the EHCP in year adjustments and that's shows a decrease of £30 K. 

The board were informed that Finance continues to meet with the placements team each time that we need to do a budget monitoring and they liaise with the SEN team at pupil level. The forecast is for a net overspend at the end of 24/5 of nearly £6 million. There are two more years of safety valve payments to come through. The first one is expected to be £1.55 million and the final year is expected to be £3.1 million. A total of £4.65 million. 

Unless anything changes in the next two years and we can reduce our spend, we won't be at a balanced position at the end of 26/7 with a deficit of £1.2 million. 

The council have two years to make an impact on some of the high spend areas and we do not know what the settlements on the High Needs block will be in the next two years. Although this is still challenging we have made progress from where we were at £13 million deficit because of the Safety Valve agreement. 

A request was made for an update of the Statutory override which is only running for another year - information will be delivered in due course. 

National Funding Formular Unit Values 24/25 

Torbay Council are going to fund our school allocations for next year on the national funding formula rates that have been released by the ESFA. 

Comparison between 24/25 & 25/26 DSG 

The board were informed that a big increase in early years is due to the number of hours extending in various age groups and also a considerable increase in the high needs block of around 7%. 

Centrally retained functions for 25/26 

Planned pupil growth - Agreed 

Schools’ admission services. Agreed 

Servicing the Schools Forum. Agreed 

Funding moved from Schools block to High Needs Block (it was agreed this was not necessary this coming financial year) 

Retained element of Early Years – Partially agreed -A detailed discussion was had regarding how current Early Years funding rates are decided and worked out. This includes what is attributed to the centrally retained funds and contributions from the High Needs Block. After a lengthy discussion the funding rates for 25/26 were agreed as the minimum rate providers will receive. However, an action was set to look at how any EY underspend is managed and also any future contributions to EY from the HNB. This will be brought back to the next forum as a paper for discussion and decision.? 

% Increase for Special Schools funding 25/26 

The board was asked to agree to a decision that was previously made at the Schools Forum that the percentage increases in primary and secondary schools were higher than we were receiving on the high needs block. So, it was a decision that we would match that increase for special schools, in effect this is allocating the 0.55% increase 

All in agreement.