Agenda item

The report (see minutes of meeting on 6^th May) identified savings of £308k in the centrally-retained budgets from School Improvement in 2015-16 and a range of options was presented to Schools Forum for the use of this funding.

It was confirmed that any Schools Forum decision would be for one year only.

The LA was seeking Schools’ Forum permission to use £200k to contribute to the Council’s funding of the schools’ PFI scheme and a further £35,000 to support Our Lady of Peace Infant and Nursery School and Our Lady of Peace Junior School in amalgamating to establish an all-through primary school.

Alterative options were included in the report: Recruitment and Retention and support for the High Needs Block.

It was clarified that the alternative option regarding Recruitment and Retention was not a proposal from the Slough Learning Partnership but written by the Vice Chair following meetings of a representative group of Headteachers from both phases.  John Constable indicated that the proposal identified a number of areas of focus including marketing and recruitment and that these could be funded in whole or part.  He referred to the recruitment approach taken by Krutika Pau and indicated that there could be joint action across the two areas. Krutika indicated that what had worked in Social Care was having a person in post dedicated to recruitment. 

There was some discussion about the PFI proposal. Helen Huntley asked whether there was any further update from the work arising out of the DfE pilot on potential savings in PFI and it was noted that no further updates had been provided.

Jo Rockall stated that agreeing to the PFI proposal could only be a one-off and would not solve the problem and would set a precedent.

Maggie Waller stated that, whilst she had had some sympathy for the PFI request there were now clear pressures on direct provision in the High Needs Block.

Robin Crofts confirmed that High Needs is a pressure due to growth: 96 more children have SEN. The LA is seeking to balance this. 

John Constable stated that School Improvement funding should be spent on school improvement priorities and there was pressure on schools especially around High Needs and recruitment.

Krutika Pau stated that although PFI was capital it was School Improvement. 

After further discussion the following were agreed:

Schools Forum agreed to allocate £35,000 of these savings to support Our Lady of Peace Infant and Nursery School and Our Lady of Peace Junior School in amalgamating to establish an all-through primary school.

Schools Forum agreed to allocate an initial £70,000 to support the Headteachers’ collaborative request regarding Recruitment and Retention.

There was some discussion about who the funding would be allocated to in order to take this forward. John Constable agreed to bring a short outline of how the £70k could be allocated back to the October Forum meeting.

Schools Forum did not agree to support the use of £200,000 of the School Improvement savings to contribute to the Council’s funding of its contribution to the schools’ PFI scheme.

It was agreed that, following the allocations above, the remaining balance of the underspend would be considered at the next meeting alongside the Cambridge Education underspend discussed in the previous agenda item.