Agenda and minutes

Members are asked to note that Mr K Pugh has replaced Mr R Bayford on this Committee.

RESOLVED that Mr K Pugh had replaced Mr Bayford on this Committee be noted.

Mr Chittenden declared an interest in Item B6 as he was a Trustee of Howard de Walden, Maidstone mentioned within the addendum to the report.

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting held on 18 September were correctly recorded and that they be signed by the Chairman.

(Verbal Report by Mr G Cooke, Deputy Lead Member for Resources, Capital Programme and Infrastructure)

(1)                           Mr Cooke advised the Committee of activities undertaken since the last meeting of the Committee within his portfolio (excluding those items due to be discussed at the meeting to prevent duplication), which included; regular visits he and the other Deputy Lead Members had made to Kent schools, an Informal Member Group which looked at possible savings on the Medium Term Plan, whilst minimising the impact on front line services, schools and young people; the Informal Members Group to look at Special Educational Needs Transport would be meeting on Friday, 20 November.  He concluded advising that data was currently being gathered on School Admissions to allow any pressures to be managed as they arose.

(2)                             The Chairman thanked Mr Cooke for his update and reminded him of the protocol that local Members should be informed of school visits in the electoral area to give them the opportunity to attend the visit.  Mr Cooke advised that this was happening Mr Sweetland concurred advising that he had been invited to such a visit and attended.

(3)                           RESOLVED that the verbal report be received.

(Verbal update by Mr K Abbott, Director of Resources and Planning Group and Mr G Ward, Director - Capital Programme and Infrastructure)

(Overview of the Two New Services- and Infrastructure (Items B2 (a) and (b) were taken together)

Mr G Ward, Director Resources

(1)               Mr Ward gave a presentation using overheads, (attached as appendix 1 to these Minutes).  He highlighted the wide range of responsibilities covered by the 135 staff in his division, which included; Building Schools for the Future Group, School Meals, Health and Safety in the KCC Estates and the approval of Outdoor Education eg residential trips.  This activity was covered within a divisional Revenue Budget of £20.5m.  He went on the outline the activities of Capital Investment. Members noted that recent successes included Kent gaining the ISO 14001 Environment Award, and an increase in the take up of waste contracts, introducing recycling.

(2)               In response to a question by Mr Gates on the subject of food recycling, Mr Ward advised that under the current pilot contract for food recycling the schools food waste was taken away and composted.

(3)               In response to a comment by Mr Tolputt, Mr Ward said that he would follow up on the request he made at the last meeting for detailed information on the Academies, and would include information on those academies that KCC had representation on.  In replied to a question raised by Mr Pugh, he highlighted that the Academies were independent state schools. 

(4)               Mr Smith advised that a report would be submitted to a future meeting of the Learning and Development Policy Overview and Scrutiny Committee on standards in schools.

(5)               In response to a question raised by Mr Brazier, Mr Abbott advised that if an Academy started to fail there was no intervention that could be made by KCC.  One of the causes of concerns with the creation of the Young People's Learning Agency (YPLA), with the demise of the Learning Skills Council, was the responsibility for funding being moved to the YPLA, which was part of the new Bill passed last week and how this would operate was not clear at present.

(6)               Mr Cooke undertook to respond to Mr Pugh’s question on the process of admissions to Academies and  the implication for KCC if the Academies operated  an exclusion, of anything up to 10%, to the children in that area, outside the meeting.  

(7)               In response to how Home to School Transport was dealt with for Academies, Mr Ward advised that KCC was responsible for Home to Schools Transport.  The Academies had exactly the same entitlements as any other school.

(8)               The Chairman thanked Mr Smith for his invitation to join the Learning and Development POSC on a visit to an Academy before its next meeting in February 2010.

(9)               Mr Ward concluded his presentation with a film entitled ‘Did You Know?’ which included a host of facts highlighting how our world was changing.

Mr K Abbott, Director of Resources and Planning Group

(10)     Mr Abbott gave his presentation using overheads (attached as appendix 2 to these Minutes).  Mr Abbott highlighted the responsibilities of his service division, which included; Communication and Information Governance that included the work across the Directorate and electronic communications across schools, Workforce Development of the Advisory Service, for the work with staff in schools and the Children’s Social Services, School Crossing Patrols, Free School Meals and Student Loans.  His team also had a wide range of responsibility for the management of the Directorate’s budget, schools budgets and managing the Medium Term Planning and Freedom of Information requests.  

The service division had a budget of £27m gross and £22m net and an income of £5m, of which £1.2m was through selling financial services to Kent schools and some contracts with Medway and Sussex. 

He highlighted key headlines and statistics which included; that there were five Freedom of Information requests in the first year, 2005, to date this had risen to 417 in 2009, for which one and half full time staff had to be employed to deal with those enquiries, and the bulk of the enquiries were mainly from the public. 

The number of applications for free school meals had risen, he felt due to the recession, from 20,000 to 26,000 applications per year. 

CRB checks had risen in supporting schools in recruiting qualified teachers.

The successes included; the first Finance Annual Conference was held this year, which brought together county wide bursars.  There had also been positive responses on the consultation process of the Early Years Providers Review. The Kent workforce and the Annual Census went well which had been a huge demand on schools and KCC, but there had been a 100% response.

(11)  Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:

(12)    In response to a question by Mr Tolputt, Mr Abbott explained that there was a long wind down since the announcement that Local Authorities were losing the responsibility for supporting student loans. The Government was moving this service to Student Finance England with a 3 year wind down. Kent use to support 20,000 students and families on student loans and guidance; including 3000 face to face interviews.  Kent was now down to 3000 existing students as all new students had to use the online service of Student Finance England.  In two years time Kent would no longer be dealing with student loans. However there was concern, which Kent had raised nationally, on what would happen to students like those that Kent had helped through the process during this summer that could not easily access the online system as their family circumstances were more complex and did not fit into the drop down questions on the online system.

(13)          In response to a question by Mrs Rook, Mr Abbott advised that where charges could be made, for Access to Information requests (where 18 hours of work was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15a

(Report by Mr K Abbott, Director Resource and Planning Group, Mr G Ward, Director Capital Programme and Infrastructure Group and Mrs S Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education)

(1)         Members considered the third report to this Committee on the forecast outturn against the budget for the Children, Families and Education (CFE) Directorate for the 2009/10 financial year based on the exception monitoring report, which was presented to Cabinet on 12 October 2009.

(2)         The Chairman asked Mr Abbott to introduce the report.  He highlighted the areas under the various headings within the report that required further updates which included; Schools - It was the intention to provide Members with an update of the half year monitoring position, however, Officers were still chasing a number of returns from schools, which meant that the work on assessing the overall position was still taking place.  Mr Abbott offered to forward a briefing note to Members outside the meeting as the next meeting was not due until January 2010.   Directorate Revenue Budget – The Directorate was projecting a balanced budget for the end of the year excluding asylum and including management action of £1.571m, the position of the Directorate was largely the same as reported at the last meeting.  Asylum – The new grant  rules that came into effect from the end of August had a lot of clauses that came into effect on the 1^st October this meant the grant rules had changed after one month, which meant the forecast shortfall increased from £0.369m to £3.969m for the end of the year.  At the time of writing the report Officers were waiting for proposal from the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) following a meeting held with them and the Leader of KCC in September.  Outlined proposal had been received that were broadly what was expected in trying to find a way forward  to provide KCC and the other main gateway authorities; Hillenden and Croydon, with a contractual arrangement for 3-5 years to essentially fund core costs and allow for some variation for changes in numbers in each year. The first meeting involving Hillenden, Croydon and KCC with the UKBA was being held in Croydon 19 November KCC was being represented by Mr B Anderson accompanied by an Officer from the finance team from Asylum Services.  Mr Abbott agreed to give Members an update at the joint meeting in January 2010.  Members were advised that a Member of the UKBA had been seconded to KCC, until the end of March 2010, to work within the Children, Families and Education Directorate in the Finance Team and the Unaccompanied Children’s Team to look at the funding and service issues that KCC was facing and dealing with the issues where UKBA and KCC interpretations differed.   Mr Abbott hoped that this would also strengthen the partnership the UKBA and feed into discussions.

(3)         In response to a question by Mr Chittenden that referred to page 10 of the report on the ‘ongoing’ increase in expenditure for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

(Report by Mrs Rosalind Turner, Managing Director, Children, Families and Education Directorate, Mrs Sarah Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education)

(1)    The Committee received a report that identified the proposed strategy for determining next year’s budget and the financial plans for the following two years.  This included the latest indications of likely pressures facing the Children, Families and Education portfolio, suggested areas for service improvements and the savings that may be needed in order to set a realistic three year budget plan.

(2)         The Chairman reminded Members that an Informal Member Group (IMG) to discuss the Medium Term Plan had been commissioned at the meeting held on 18 September with a Membership of 6, (2 Members from each of the 3 Children, Families and Education Policy Overview and Scrutiny Committees (POSCs)).  Chaired by Mr K Smith, the IMG met on Tuesday, 17 November to discuss suggested savings and priorities to inform this Committee. 

(3)         The Chairman asked Mr Abbott to introduce the report.  Mr Abbott advised that the report set out the latest information on the known pressures for the portfolio and highlighted areas of possible service improvements, which were needed to set a realistic budget for the next three years.   The format of the papers was in the standard form for all the POSCs. 

(4)         Mr Abbott explained that it was already in the public domain that KCC had to reduce its spending by £200m over the next 3 years and as part of that all Directorates were set targets for efficiency savings in respect of staffing and procurement activity.  The CFE Directorate’s target was £9.4m and savings totalling that had been identified and included in the report. 

(5)         Delivery of those efficiency savings and a robust stance on pay and prices in light of the current inflation still left savings of £130m needed across the County Council.  Each of the POSCs had been tasked to find 10% savings of £130m. 

(6)         The issues for the CFE Directorate included; the Directorate was in a unique position as 85% of its spending, £1.36b on revenue came from central government grants and 15% equal to £210m was funded directly by KCC.  The set of challenges were to identify savings of 2/3rds part funded by KCC related to Home to School Transport and Children Social Care and included a number of risks of a high level of dependency on government specific grants given the financial climate.

(7)         At recent staff and school briefings the key principles were advised in setting the Medium Term Plan, which were primarily; to protect the front line services, reduce overheads and administration, increase efficiency and maximise income. The priorities for CFE were set out in the Young Person’s Plan, (summarised in appendix 4 of the report). Mr Abbott advised that the financial climate was going to be difficult over the next 3 years especially with the rise in expectation on the services. 

(8)         The County Council had identified as part of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

(Report by Mr G Ward, Director, Capital Programme & Infrastructure and Mrs S Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education Directorate)

(1)         The Committee considered a report that provided an update on the Authority’s current progress with its BSF Programme, which Kent entered in September 2005 with an estimated overall capital allocation, provided the Programme lasted to the end, of £1.8 billion. 

(2)         Mr Ward gave a detailed presentation using overheads (as attached to these Minutes) and played a DVD on BSF.  He advised that the driving force was to have building facilities for secondary education fit for the 21^st  Century, putting learning first and being the centre of the community.  Members noted that a video on BSF was also available to watch on Kent TV.

(3)         Members were given the opportunity to make comments and ask questions which included the following:

(4)          In response to questions by Mr Pugh, Mr Ward advised that the first BSF contract was drawn up in 2008 for the first Local Education Partnership schools in; Gravesham, Swale, Thanet and two in Canterbury Coastal, the contract gave exclusivity to the partner to deliver those schools.  In Wave 3 there were ten schools being constructed at present, which were all on schedule.   In Wave 4 they had been issued to the Local Education Partnership (LEP) to take up the schemes to be developed had be made, the process was outlined in appendix 2 of the report.  A letter had now been received from the LEP indicating a willingness to take them up.  The contract should reach closure at the end of the summer next year and the facilities would come on line in 2013.  Discussions were due to start with the Projects for Schools (PfS) about starting on Wave 6 of the programme but this would be dependent on what happened in the general election in 2010.

(5)         Mr Ward respond to a further question by Mr Pugh advising that up until two years ago the Academies were dealt with by the Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and a sponsor.  KCC was a sponsor and had no more involvement.  Then PfS was given the whole remit to look after the BSF and the Academy Programme.  Since then KCC was responsible for the physical delivery of the building, funding was made available to KCC as the Local Education Authority, it was KCC’s responsibility to deliver the building to the Academy Trust and KCC effectively license them to occupy the buildings and the use of the land on a lease of 125 years. In the case of Sheppey because it was in the LEP1 patch a decision was made that it would be picked up through the BSF oppose to going elsewhere with a contractor and it was in Wave 4.  Mr Ward advised that there was an error in the report indicating that the 2 sites in Sheppey were in Wave 6 this should be altered to read Wave 4.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

(Report by S Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education  and Mrs R Turner, Managing Director of Children, Families & Education Directorate)           

(Mrs A Gamby, Head of Early Years and Childcare (Operations) and Mrs R Tickle, Children’s Centre Project Officer were present for this item)

(1)         The Committee received a report regarding the Review of Children’s Centres, with a particular focus on Round Three.

(2)         The Chairman welcomed Mrs Gamby and Mrs Tickle to the meeting and asked Mrs Gamby to introduce the report.

(3)         Mrs Gamby explained that the Children’s Centres agenda was a major national initiative.  The Children’s Centres role was about the leadership and management of a range of services for children and their families in an area in a joined up way. A Children’s Centre was not a nursery although a nursery may be a provision at the Centre. The government’s aim was for 3500 Children’s Centres nationally by 2012.  What this meant for Kent was that originally there would be 102 Children’s Centres, which would be delivered in three rounds; Round 1 had 20 Centres (2004-2006) and Round 2 had an additional 52 Centres (2006-2008) and in Round 3 up to 30 Centres.  There was a need for Round 3 to connect and join up with Rounds 1 and 2 for universal coverage.  Cabinet agreed to a review of the Children’s Centres to ensure that in the current economic climate that the capital portfolio was the best that it could be to deliver universal children’s services.  The revenue funding for Children’s Centres came through a grant and at present there was no confirmation of what that grant would be after 2011.  The aim of the review was to; minimise the number of new builds, maximise the number of centres delivering existing facilities, further explore whether some centres might deliver and manage through contractual arrangements with voluntary or private organisations and identify whether there was potential to provide universal coverage for the children and families of Kent with fewer Centres than the potential 30 in Round 3 and fewer than the original 102 Children Centres.

(4)         Mrs Gamby then spoke on the two tabled papers headed ‘Revised Round Three Proposals 11/09’, which highlighted that following the review there could potentially be 25 Children Centres instead of 30 in Round 3 and therefore county wide 97 Children’s Centres in total instead of 102, and ‘Children’s Centres Capital Funding and Predicted Spend’, which provided the predicted sending on Rounds 2 and 3 and the infrastructure and signage around all three rounds.  This gave a predicted spend with the revised proposals of £30,708,986 with a balance of £3,824,950 to be reinvested. 

(5)         Members of the Committee were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:

(6)               In response to questions by Mr Pugh on Rounds 1 and 2, Mrs Gamby advised that KCC was the accountable body for all Children’s Centres, most were delivered in house through a KCC Children’s Centre Manager, a few were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

(Report by Mr P Wickenden, Overview, Scrutiny and Localism Manager)

(1)         Members received a report on the progress with establishing a Select Committee Topic Review Work Programme for 2009/2010.

(2)    The Democratic Services Officer advised that the Policy Overview Coordinating Committee agreed that the following topics would form part of the work programme for 2009/2010:-

·         Extended Schools

·         Renewable Energy – What should Kent’s role be?

·         Dementia

·        Educational Attainment of Pupils and Schools in Areas of High     Deprivation

(3)    Mr Sweetland requested an overview of the Local Children’s Services Partnerships at a future meeting of this Committee.    

(4)         RESOLVED that:-

(a)  the request by Mr Sweetland be noted; and

(b) the topics to be included in the new Select Committee Topic Review Work Programme for 2009/2010 as set out in paragraph (2) above be noted.