Minutes:
(Verbal report by Mr G Cooke, Deputy Cabinet Member, Resources Capital Programme and Infrastructure, Mr K Abbott, Director, Resources and Planning Group and Mr G Ward, Director, Capital and Infrastructure Group)
(1) The Chairman asked Mr Cooke to give his verbal update. Mr Cooke advised the Committee of the visits he and the other Deputy Cabinet Members had made to various Kent primary and secondary schools, including schools that were part of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF), moving into special measures or struggling. He stated that he had visited primary schools that had a great need but with a limited primary capital programme. He felt that there was a missed opportunity as there seemed to be an unlimited resource in BSF. The work of BSF was understood but the work with children began with early years and at primary school, through the quality of the teachers. He took the opportunity to advise that Ms Andrea Chapman Headteacher of Lydd Primary School had been reinstated. The Committee agreed that a letter being sent to Ms Chapman regarding her reinstatement.
(2) Mr Cooke then spoke on school admissions and advised that 94% of primary and secondary school children had been offered a school of their choice and 80% were going to their first school of choice.
(3) Mr Abbott referred to the three Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) publications that were published in March 2010 for consultation, in particular publication 1 - School Funding and publication 2 - The Distribution of School Funding, which he felt would be tricky to respond to as the closing date for comments was a month after the date of the general election and he felt that the outcome of the general election would effect what was in some of the proposals. He stated that there was more concern with the consultation on the Distribution of School Funding as the DCSF was looking to change the methodology and how it effectively distributed the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) between the English local authorities at the same time looking to no longer allocate specific grants and mainstreaming them by taking the grants and adding them into the DSG so that there was more flexibility in spending the money and less ring fencing. This authority had always pushed for this but there was concern about the national redistribution of schools funding that happened at the same time as mainstream specific grants as Kent schools always lost out on both counts in terms of the national distribution as they tended to move away from the South and South East and if the specific grants were included they would be caught up in this process. This would be closely monitored. Mr Abbott added that the papers set out the five key items that the DCSF wanted to base the distribution on, there was no indication in the proposals as to the proportion that those five elements made up the distribution, so it would be difficult to gauge a response.
(4) Mr Abbott concluded that the third consultation from the DCSF was the Management of Schools Surplus Balances, which seemed to be in line with what KCC was already doing. One issue that may raise concerns with schools was the challenging of school reserves. The guidance now said “…if a school was looking to have reserves bigger than the threshold ie over 5% or 8% the LEA should challenge the whole reserve”. This would be discussed with the Funding Forum in May 2010.
(5) Members were given the opportunity to make comments and ask questions which included the following:
(6) In response to a question by Mrs Rook, Mr Abbott advised that the government had stated that where local authorities were not seen to act on excessive school reserves it would legislate; it currently stood at £2 billion nationally in school reserves. The government gave local authorities more scope to act; KCC was one of the minority authorities to claw back money from school reserves and had made it clear that money was to be spent on children today. The school reserves had been considerably reduced in the past 2 years.
(7) Mr Ward then introduced the Capital Programme and Infrastructure portfolio highlighting key issues that included; that 80% of admission applications were now being made on line as opposed to 15% last year, which had made the process easier. On 30 March 2010 the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) outline business case funding was approved. The funding was estimated at £250m. There had also been recent approval to the outline business case for Skinners’ Kent Academy, Tunbridge Wells, allowing the process to begin with approving the contractor and that contractor would then gain access to the next six Academies. Ten schools were already under construction.
(8) Mr Ward advised Members that the Capital Programme was approved on 10 February 2010 but the main uncertainty was that the funding physically stopped on 31 March 2011. The funding for 2011 was not yet known but various scenarios were being worked on i.e. what would happen if we received 40% less. There would also be new challenges as the funding had previously been budgeted over 3 years.
(9) In reply to a question by Mr Vye, Mr Cooke advised that the Kent Test was not a mechanism of pass or fail but a streaming mechanism, where the pass mark varied from year to year. He understood that the pass mark was pitched at streaming 20% of the pupils, but reminded Members that it was critical to note that affecting the overall percentage of children that went to grammar school was the appeals process which included; the schools, parents and secondary Headteachers. He felt that there would be no benefit in having separate pass marks for the Kent Test between the East and West of Kent. Overall there needed to be sufficient grammar school places for the children in Kent. There was an issue of some children from out of county attending grammar school places and there were a number of rulings that needed to be looked at including the Greenwich ruling. The Greenwich ruling would allow the authority to draw parish boundaries around schools. He reminded Members that most schools in the County had their own school admissions policy, which the LEA had no authority to demand who the school admitted that was the judgement of the Headteacher and Governors. He felt that it would not be the direction to pursue but there was an option to appeal to the Adjudicator.
(10) In response to Mr Vye’s request, Mr Cooke agreed to a report being presented to the next meeting of the Policy Overview and Scrutiny Committee giving details of the percentage pass figures for grammar schools throughout the County.
(11) In reply to a question by Mr Horne, Mr Ward advised that the outline business case had been agreed and the funding had been released by the Partnership for Schools and Treasury for the Skinners’ Kent Academy, Tunbridge Wells. The only obstacle to stop it from being built would be KCC’s inability to arrive at a satisfactory agreement with a contractor, which would not happen and the school would be delivered.
(12) In response to follow up questions by Mr Horne, Mr Abbott advised that once the Skinners’ Kent Academy was established, funding would be received by them directly via The Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) one of the new agencies that had replaced the Learning Skills Council that handled the funding on behalf of the Department of Children, Schools and Families.
(13) In response to questions by Mrs Rook, Mr Ward stated that KCC would continue to lobby government about the funding for BSF being extended to be used for the benefit of not just buildings but providing excellent teaching etc. There was national recognition that as we moved forward there was a need to be far more joined up both across the programmes and across individual directorates of the authority and what was happening within Total Place but also in the linkages with District Councils where there had been some success. He gave the example of the new BSF scheme in Herne Bay High School where KCC was integrating some investment from Canterbury City Council for the replacement of some of the leisure facilities. Mr Ward commented that he felt school admissions was functioning well and that the chances of there being zero percent of school places being allocated by the local authority was slim, unless the schools were able to run with 20% vacancies and were expanded, virtually all children could be placed. Referring back to teaching and learning he stated that another challenge in schools was the effect of the change in the quality of the Headteacher and a change in the senior management team which had an affect on parents choosing a school.
(14) RESOLVED that:
(a) a report be submitted to the next meeting of the this Committee giving details of the percentage pass figures for grammar schools throughout the County; and
(b) the responses to Members questions and comments on the verbal updates be noted.