Agenda item

At the previous Schools Forum meeting it had been reported that a positive meeting had been held with the ESFA regarding the Council’s DSG Recovery Plan. The DfE had now changed their policy and on Friday 24 July had published their conditions of grant.  The DSG Recovery Plan was now to be replaced with a DSG Management Plan and the need had been removed for a formal Recovery Plan.  The relevant extract was highlighted to members. The DfE appeared to acknowledge that the majority of High Needs deficits would not be recovered but a plan was still required to demonstrate efficiencies.

John Wood confirmed that Mark McCurrie, Consultant SEN Commissioner had been appointed as additional support in the work to address the High Needs deficit and that Mark McCurrie had presented a paper to the High Needs Task Group at their meeting on  Tuesday 22 September.

During September, the ESFA had published a template for the DSG Management Plan and the key features had been highlighted in John Wood’s paper to Schools Forum.  It was explained that the template did not focus on Blocks alone but linked to SEND strategies, with an expectation to include links to finance. It was felt the template was a useful, ‘live’ document which had to be coordinated with other pieces of work.  Further resources had been required and it had been advantageous to bring in more support to work on the local inspection plan.

The DSG Management Plan would need to be used to prepare the 2020/21 budget, would be discussed with Schools Forum and would have to be published as part of the local offer and on other websites.

Details of mitigated and unmitigated expenditure would have to be provided and there would be a need to report on how the Council engaged with stakeholders in 2021/22. A change in budget structure and reporting would also be required, resulting in more transparency and increased accountability. John Wood confirmed there was a need for the Borough to improve their use of funding, adding that the reporting on out of borough placements was incorrect.

As noted, the High Needs Task Group had met and the proposed future timeline was outlined. Meetings of the Task Group would need to continue until March/April of 2021, in order to set the 2021/22 budget, populate the template and develop the 3-year plan.  A number of activities were already underway and a draft report would be made available for the next meeting of Schools Forum, with two Task Group meetings scheduled to take place prior to that date.

The Chair said that the clarity from the DfE was welcome and there appeared to be a recognition that it was about managing the situation rather than recovery.  The LA was thanked for having made the additional support available.

A member queried whether the two-week period allowed for LA officers to meet with schools and to review specialist provision, particularly Resource Bases, was enough and what discussions were likely to feature.  It was explained that Mark McCurrie was currently setting up meetings with those schools with larger Resource bases and a meeting for all schools with Resource bases.  Information was being compiled on resource base funding and other specialist places.  Officers had been working with Priory School to develop an agenda and dialogue would be ongoing. It was not anticipated there would be any major changes in provision in the 2021/22 budget.  This work would identify changes in provision which could take effect from next year but would impact on the 2022/23 budget.  An explanatory document was due to be shared with schools on 2 October 2020.

If was felt two areas needed to change:

• the imbalance between primary and secondary, plus the need to work towards better continuity between the two, particularly in the area of autism;
• more scrutiny was required on how the funding made available for Resource Bases was allocated.