Agenda and minutes

Apologies had been received from Mrs Z Birchall, Mr P Raspin and Ms R Kirby.

There were no declarations of Disposable Pecuniary Interests and Personal or Personal and Prejudicial Interests.

That the minutes of the last meeting held on 19 January 2023, having been printed and circulated amongst members, be taken as read and correctly recorded, and be signed by the Chair.

The Secretary advised that the two vacancies for a Secondary Academy Headteacher and a Primary Academy Governor had still not been filled.

Resolved – (a) That the Chair asks for volunteers for the role of Secondary Academy Headteacher at the next Secondary Heads meeting, and (b) that the Secretary contacts Denise West with reference to the vacant governor role.

Mrs N Raines presented the report.

To support financial viability of settings delivering funded early education, it had been announced that the hourly rate paid to childcare settings would increase with an investment of £204 million from September 2023.

Additionally, a phased extension to funded early education from April 2024 had been unveiled.  This was to support families into work and reduce cost of living pressures for families in work with young children.  Parents who worked more than 16 hours per week and earnt less than £100,000 would become eligible for funded early education and childcare.

The Early Years funding would increase in September 2023 enabling a higher rate of funding for all settings from the autumn term for the remainder of the financial year. Further guidance and a timeline to implement the changes for the autumn term was awaited from the Department for Education.

Details of funding allocations and increases to the national average rate were set out in the report.

Resolved – That the increasing level of funding for the current financial year and the extension of funded places for working families be noted.

Mrs T Falshaw presented the report.

The report updated the Schools Forum on the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) outturn for 2022/23 and the DSG earmarked reserve as at 31 March 2023.

The DSG was a ring fenced specific grant that must be used in support of the schools budget as defined in the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2022.  It could be used for no other purpose.

Councils were responsible for ensuring that the DSG was deployed in support of the schools budget.  This included both DSG funding allocated to central expenditure (High Needs, Central (CSSB) and Early Years) and funding for the individual school budgets allocated in accordance with their local schools formula.

The final DSG allocation for 2022/23 was £161.234m (£97.464m following academy and high needs recoupment of £63,771m).  A breakdown of expenditure for each of the central budgets for early years, high needs and central provision was shown at Appendix 1 to the report.   The net effect of spending resulted in a contribution to the DSG ring fenced earmarked reserve was also detailed in the report.

Resolved – That the final report outturn for 2022/23 be noted.

Mrs R Maughan presented the report.

The report informed the Schools Forum of the outturn of individual school budgets and the overall financial position of North Lincolnshire maintained schools at the close of the financial year 2022/23.

Individual school budgets for 2022/23 amounted to £66.653m for maintained, secondary, primary and special schools.  In addition, maintained schools carried forward balances of £6.856m from 2021/22.

Actual expenditure by maintained schools in 2022/23 was £66.339m, resulting in an in-year contribution to reserves of £0.314m.

The report gave details of schools deficit balances.

Deficits had occurred for a combination of reasons; long term sickness, lower admission numbers, higher energy costs and increased pay awards.  Most schools with a deficit were on track to repay the deficits in 2023/24 .

DSG school reserves had been added to, which was a good financial position for schools to be in generally. 

Resolved – That the report be noted.

·       Minor change to Scheme for Financing Local Authority Maintained Schools

Mrs R Maughan advised that there had been a slight change to the scheme in relation to the sale of assets.  There was now an allowance for schools to retain funds from the sale of assets, as long as they were purchased from delegated funding.  If this was not the case, it was not the decision of the school to deal with the proceeds of the asset.  The scheme would be amended to take account of this.