Agenda item

Atul Lad presented the paper which asked Schools Forum to agree the centrally held DSG items as listed in appendix 1. The paper recommends that all DSG  budgets are centrally retained apart from £149,000 for ‘Schools Apportionment’ (item 18, appendix one) which is recommended to be put back into schools’ budgets.

Atul explained that the table in appendix 1 includes details of all the budgets and Schools Forum is asked to agree each of the items as listed. Discussion took place as follows:

Item 1, Inclusion Management: needs to come out of Cambridge Education and into the high needs block. Schools Forum agreed item 1. Philip Gregory asked why some of the figures are slightly different from those brought to Schools Forum in October. Steve Elson explained that they are now exact figures as the DSG contribution to the council of £337,000 has been stripped out across the budgets

Item 6, Roma Community Project: further details have been included regarding the earlier questions regarding what this budget provides. Schools Forum is not aware of there being anybody in post to provide this service. (The same applies to item 7, Traveller Service).

Action: Tony Smith will clarify whether this person exists.

Item 8, Inclusion Management: Steve Elson confirmed he was not sure what this was for and it is likely to end up in the School Improvement budget.

Action: Steve Elson will find out further details in time for the next meeting.

Item 9, Education Resource Services (former LACES): confirmed that there are specific staff that provide this support.

Item 14, SEN Transport: confirmed the figure is part of the budget, the rest (£118,000) is provided by the Council budget.

Item 15, Haybrook Provision: this needs to be renamed as it doesn’t go into Haybrook. Needs clarification as to what element of EOTAS it is funding.

Item 16-25: it was agreed these items can be merged together into the School Improvement Budget.

Clarification is needed regarding whether item 23 (Broadband) is still needed.

John Constable confirmed that NQT delivery is now funded by the SLP and is no longer centrally funded.

Agreed item 18 on Apportionment will be taken out.

Item 26-27: Agreed.

Steve Elson confirmed that updated figures and further clarification will be included in the June / July outturn paper indicating how much has been spent and what it has been spent on.

Specific items needing clarification will be brought back to the next meeting for Schools Forum to decide whether to retain them or put them back into schools’ budgets. The table was otherwise agreed.