Agenda and minutes

The Education Cabinet Committee is asked to agree the co-option of three Diocesan Representatives on a non voting basis on the Education Cabinet Committee. The nominees are Mr Alex Tear (Director of Education, Rochester Diocese), Mr Quentin Roper (Director of Education, Canterbury Diocese), and Dr Anne Bamford (Director of Education, The Archdiocese of Southwark)

RESOLVED that the Education Cabinet Committee agreed the co-option of three Diocesan Representatives on a non voting basis on the Education Cabinet Committee. The nominees were Mr Alex Tear (Director of Education, Rochester Diocese), Mr Quentin Roper (Director of Education, Canterbury Diocese), and Dr Anne Bamford (Director of Education, The Archdiocese of Southwark).

1.          Mrs Crabtree made a declaration regarding Item D4 advising that her sister was a governor at Bower Grove School, Maidstone.

2.          Mr Balfour made a declaration regarding Item D5 as his wife ran a Montessori school.

3.          Mr Scobie made a declaration regarding Item E1 advising that he had family members that worked at Laleham Gap (Special School), Margate. 

Members are asked to note that the next meeting of this Cabinet Committee has been rescheduled for Wednesday, 4 December 2013 at 10.00 am.  Please delete 20 November meeting from your diary.

RESOLVED that the next meeting of this Cabinet Committee had been rescheduled for Wednesday, 4 December 2013 at 10.00 am and that the meeting scheduled for 20 November be deleted from the County Council diary.

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting held on 21 June 2013 are correctly recorded subjected to the correction of typographical errors and that they be signed by the Chairman.

1.          The Cabinet Member, Mr Gough, and the Corporate Director, Mr Leeson,   gave their verbal updates and highlighted work undertaken since the last Cabinet Committee meeting which included the following:

·       Targeted Basic Need Fund – KCC submitted 26 bids for the Targeted Basic Need Fund and was successful with 19 of those gaining £31 million in additional capital grant. Members would have the opportunity to discuss this in a later part of the agenda.

·       The tentative GCSE examination results in English and Maths in the 5 A*-C grades looked to have improved, at a time when nationally they were in decline.  The Key Stage 1 and 2 results also looked positive.  Mr Gough thanked the schools, their pupils and KCC officers for their hard work to gain this improvement.

·       Private Finance Initiative – There were 11 schools which had rebuilds under PFI.  The cost of this would not change due to any school converting to an academy.  The money that was paid for the affordability gap was not paid from council tax or from KCC’s budget; it was to be paid from the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), the overall school pot.  The two things that have changed over the past 2 years were that, firstly, the DSG was flat in cost terms at a time when the affordability gap was going up in line with inflation, which meant that a gap was opening up and secondly, there had been a significant number of Kent schools, over 110, converting to academy status over the last 3 years and it was that, rather than any particular school converting, that reduced the pot that was available for paying for the PFI charges and put more of a burden on those schools that remain maintained.

·       Sevenoaks Grammar School Annex – An agreement was reached with Valley Invicta Academy Trust, Maidstone, in March 2013, to work in partnership on their bid.  The Weald of Kent Grammar School, Tonbridge, brought in a later bid quite separately that was not discussed with KCC until it became public, since then KCC had worked with the Weald of Kent Grammar School.  KCC’s position is that these are two good Kent schools and KCC is delighted that they both wished to provide Sevenoaks Grammar School annex provision.

     Wildernesse site, Sevenoaks – An agreement was reached with the Department of Education (DfE) on the Wildernesse site.  The Wildernesse site was originally susceptible to being taken over for the purposes of the Free School by the DfE.  It had been agreed that part of the Wildernesse site would be used for the Trinity Free School in 2015 and the remainder of the site would be available for the Sevenoaks Grammar School Annex, subject to that being approved. This meant the site would no longer be a block on the annex happening.  Mr Gough stressed it was important to emphasise that as far as the DfE and KCC were concerned these were two separate issues. 

     The principle to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 133.

(Report by Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

(Mr D Adams, Area Education Officer, South Kent, was present for this item)

1.     The Corporate Director, Mr Leeson and the Area Education Officer, Mr Adams, introduced the report highlighting that Kent had submitted 26 school bids for the Targeted Basic Need fund and had been successful with 19 of those, gaining £31 million in additional capital grant, which would enable the Local Authority to commission five new primary schools, and provide places in a further seven primary schools and seven special schools by September 2015.   The seven schools that were unsuccessful would be financed another way.

2.     Mr Leeson responded to comments and questions by Members which included the following:

a)    Schools were chosen that best matched the criteria of the Targeted Basic Need fund. 

b)    Members welcomed the new schools for the Tonbridge and Malling area.

c)     The Targeted Basic Need Fund was money allocated specifically to those 19 projects. Funding for schools expansions could also be gained through a wide range of funding including developer contributions and KCC borrowing the funding.

d)    There was acknowledgment that there were still enormous pressures in Thanet, which had been identified in the Commissioning Plan. 

e)    Mr Leeson advised that the Local Authority was the commissioner of the provision of new schools that would be academies or free schools.  The decision to select a sponsor for each of the five new schools rests with the Secretary of State. 

The Secretary of State would be informed by an assessment and expression of preference which must be carried out by the Local Authority.  Once the new schools were established they were free standing entities.  Mr Adams added that Special Need provision would be written into the agreement of the SLA between the new schools and KCC.  KCC would set out the criteria long term and if any of the new schools at any time did not want to continue running the Special Need provision this had to be decided unilaterally. 

3.     RESOLVED that:-

a)    the responses to comments and questions by Members be noted;

b)    the increase funding available through the Targeted Basic Need grant be noted; and

c)     the Education Cabinet Committee endorses the decision to be taken by the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform on the proposed decisions to expand and build at the schools and in the areas identified.

(Report by Mr R Gough, Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform and Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

(Mr K Abbott, Finance Business Partner, Director School Resources was present for this item)

1.               The Director of School Resources, Mr Abbott, introduced the report and highlighted the following:

·       This was the first quarterly full monitoring budget report for 2013/14 that had been reported to the Cabinet on 16 September 2013.  The monitoring in the report reflected the pre-election format as the Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement had decided that we would continue to report in that format for the remainder of the financial year and reflect the portfolio changes as part of the structure of the 2014/15 budget.

·       Schools were receiving support from officers from Finance and the Schools Improvement Team with their three year budget plans for 2014/15 and 2015/16 to avoid potential deficits and resolve any issues early.

·       Although the Education, Learning and Skills Directorate was forecasting a £800k underspend for the current year in the revenue budget, there were significant pressures on budgets that were funded from the Dedicated Schools Grant, in particular the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Independent/Non-Maintained Provision and Redundancy (Schools).  The longer term solutions to this lay in the SEND Strategy and the completion of the Special Schools Review.  In the meantime discussions may need to be had with schools about rebalancing of the position of what was delegated and non delegated to find a way of funding those pressures until more long term solutions were found.

·       Mr Leeson advised that the SEND Strategy was due to be published.  The Strategy sets out clear proposals to expand the provision in Kent so that there was less need to have more expensive out of county provision.

2.               Mr Abbott and Mr Leeson responded to comments and questions by Members which included the following:

a)         A request was made for a Budget Task and Finish Group to allow Members time to discuss potential budget savings.  The Chairman agreed to speak with the Leader to seek permission.

b)         Requests were made for details of what expenditure was discretionary and what was statutory; details on the Dedicated Schools Grant; and the role of the Schools Funding Forum.  Mr Leeson advised that there was a review on the non-spending parts of the DSG at the request of the Schools Funding Forum and it agreed the number of areas that would be reviewed.  The outcome of that review would be considered by the Schools Funding Forum in December.  Mr Leeson agreed to provide details on the role of the DSG; the Schools Funding Forum and the outcome of the review at the next meeting of this Cabinet Committee.

c)          Concerns were raised regarding  schools planned maintenance and those schools that were not in category A (i.e. in need of urgent repair) could over time go into category A if their repairs were not met in time.   Mr Abbott agreed to produce information on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 136.

(Report by Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

1.               The Corporate Director, Mr Leeson, introduced a report on the Education, Learning and Skills performance management framework, which is the monitoring tool for the targets and the milestones for each year up to 2016, set out in Bold Steps for Education. 

2.               Mr Leeson responded to comments and questions by Members which included the following:

• Mr Leeson advised that the data in the report was retrospective as it looked at past trends and the latest position.  In the past year the PRU had already made a significant difference.  As a result of the review all young people attending PRU provision would remain on the roll of the school and remain the responsibility of the school.  There were now many more alternatives available to address the needs of those young people.  There was far less recourse for permanent exclusion; much better proposals in place in most areas to managed moves and the use of in year fair access protocol where if necessary an alternative school or an alternative curriculum pathway could be found.  Permanent exclusions had reduced from 210 in the year 2012 to 140 in 2013.  The target was to reduce this further, to below 40, in the next two years.

3.               RESOLVED that:-

a)              the responses to comments and questions by Members be noted; and

b)              the development of the Education, Learning and Skills Performance Management Framework and the current performance be noted.

(Report by Mr J Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement and Mr A Wood Corporate Director Finance and Procurement)

(Mr D Shipton, Head of Financial Strategy and Mr K Abbott, Director, School Resources, were present for this item)

1.               The Head of Financial Strategy, Mr Shipton, introduced a report that informed Members of the latest funding estimates for the next four years and the implications for KCC’s financial planning.

2.               Mr Shipton highlighted the following points:

• The launch of the consultation on next year’s budget would take place in early November when this Cabinet Committee would have the opportunity to debate the findings at its meeting on 2 December in advance of Cabinet debate in January 2014 and then County Council in February 2014.
• The new funding arrangements were complex.  The report outlined the baseline figures that the government was setting and those figures were being used as the level of funding that would be available to Kent. There would be some minor variation with business rate collection in local districts but it was considered that this would have a minimum impact on Kent.
• The position for 2014/15 had been set out in the report and Kent was expecting a £36 million reduction in its baseline compared to 2013/14 which was £3 million more than was expected in the settlement in February 2013.  For 2014/15 across the whole of the County Council the 2013/14 budget had £25 million one-off actions to balance the budget and alternatives would need to be found for 2014/15 to balance the budget.  There was a £36 million reduction in the funding and £25 million needed to be found and there would still be unavoidable spending pressures that would arise through the course of the year.
• The budget for 2015/16 was significantly worse than was previously anticipated; there was to be a 13% reduction in the core base line funding because some of the new initiatives that were announced were to be recycled money from the main baseline settlement and was not from new money.
• A government consultation was launched regarding the funding of the new Local Growth Fund (LGF).  The Government had already determined that the LGF should be created by redirecting existing funding from education and skills, transport, and housing.  This consultation dealt with the proposal that £400 million would be pooled from the New Homes Bonus (NHB) between authorities with each Local Enterprise Partnership.   In essence legislation would be passed requiring local authorities to pas on a fixed % of NHB to the LEP which could have a significant impact on Kent’s funding for 2015/16.
• For 2015/16 the government, in the new spending round in June, announced that there would be a 20% reduction in the Education Services Grant, which was money that was taken away from local authorities and given to the Department of Education (DfE) to fund local authority central services and then the DfE reissued it back, as a grant to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 138.

(Report by Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director of Education, Learning and Skills)

(Mr J Nehra – Area Education Officer, West Kent, was present for this item)   

1.               The Cabinet Committee considered a report that proposed the transfer of Bower Grove secondary school satellite provision from Bower Grove School, Maidstone, to St Augustine Academy for September 2014 and to change the designated number of Bower Grove School.

2.               RESOLVED that the public consultation on the proposal to transfer the Bower Grove secondary satellite provision from Bower Grove School, Maidstone, to St Augustine Academy and change the designated number of Bower Grove School, Maidstone, which was currently underway be noted. 

 (Report by Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

(Ms S Dunn, Head of Skills and Employability and Mr K Abbott, Director, School Resources were present for this item)

1.               Mr Abbott and Ms Dunn introduced a report that covered:

·       the background to the funding system for school sixth forms and FE colleges;

·       how the post-16 funding system worked;

·       what the funding should deliver;

·       funding High Needs Students;

·       the impact of the funding system on KCC;

·       the impact of the funding system on institutions; and

·       capital funding.

2.               Mr Abbott and Ms Dunn responded to comments and questions by Members which included the following:

a)         Ms Dunn clarified that young people aged 16-18 years did not have to stay on at school but had to be in training/learning with an emphasis on gaining functionality in English and mathematics.  This could be met by an apprenticeship or workplace learning provider for which funding would be available.

b)         Through facing funding reductions, there had been some innovative solutions by working in partnership across schools, colleges and workplace learning providers to deliver the Post 16 curriculum.   Mr Leeson added that there were opportunities to gain funding for the study programme Post 16.  No programme would be approved without elements of English and mathematics for those young people who had not acquired this at the age of 16 years. There were other elements such as vocational learning, work experience and volunteering that also attracted funding.  It was important for schools to look at other ways of attracting additional funding for Post 16 funding.  There were two elements of change in the funding: 1. There was a redistribution of the funding across schools and the further education sectors; and 2. There was an increase in funding for some aspects of Post 16 learning, which was welcomed.

c)          The appendix to the report was drawn up using the old formula and was based on the schools’ qualifications. As from this year there would be £4000 flat rate per learner.  Mr Abbott added that there was no ringfencing of this funding.

3.       RESOLVED that the responses to comments and questions by Members and the information in the report be noted with thanks.

(Report by Mr R Gough, Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform and Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

(Mr D Adams, Area Education Officer, South Kent, Mr R Dalziel, Area Education officer, North Kent and Ms S Dunn, Head of Skills and Employability, were present for this item)

1.               The Cabinet Member, Mr Gough, and Corporate Director, Mr Leeson, introduced a report that sets out the background and analysis of pressures in the Commissioning Plan for Education Provision 2013-18 prior to the final approval of the Plan by Cabinet on 14 October 2013. 

2.               Mr Leeson confirmed that the Commissioning Plan would be reviewed biannually and the next review would be in Spring 2014.

3.               Mr Gough, Mr Leeson and Officers in attendance responded to comments and questions by Members which included the following:

a)         A comment was made regarding the difficulty in planning for the new influx of people migrating to Kent and commended the accuracy of the data in the report.  The Chairman explained that the district councils were providing much more data, which included new housing developments, on which KCC could forecast student numbers.

b)         A comment was made that KCC should not be reliant on the number of new housing developments to indicate the number of school places needed in an area.  Mr Adams advised that the forecast looked at the capacity long term for those families that were already living in the area and what additions may be required if housing developments happened at the pace that KCC was advised by the district councils.  This allowed robust discussions to take place with the colleagues in the district councils about what future infrastructure needs there might be for KCC, the district council and Health etc and the cost of that could be estimated.  Projections could also be made for the next 10 to 20 years when KCC could identify; what capacity was needed, which S106 contribution would apply and the Community Levy charges, which came on line in 2014.

c)          Ms Dunn explained that work had been carried out on a “Curriculum Map Post 16”, which identified modern foreign language for significant development.  KCC was working with Kent University on how KCC could build in the capacity in some of Kent schools to reintroduce a broader offer of modern foreign languages as a positive option.  This related back to the funding issue where KCC could introduce interesting collaborative pathways across a range of schools for giving those young people who want to do two or three languages at A-level the opportunity to do so.   Mr Leeson added that the changes to the  Qualification Framework at 16 years would contribute to this as well as the increased use of EBAC as a measure of secondary school performance and proposals for creating a new performance measure for schools which was the best outcomes across 8 curriculum subjects rather than 5 which we have now.

d)         Agreement was given to Mr Scobie  ...  view the full minutes text for item 141.

(Report by Mr R Gough, Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform and Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

1.                Mr Leeson introduced a report that provided the rationale for a new Early Years and Childcare Strategy, including its national and local context, its scope, what it would aim to achieve and the process and timescales for its development, consultation, final agreement and implementation.

2.               Mr Leeson highlighted that a high proportion of the Early Years provision in Kent was good quality and work was being undertaken to further develop that provision. 

3.               Mr Leeson responded to comments and questions by Members which included the following:

• Mr Leeson considered that the key for new parents was an understanding of education as well as care within Early Years provision and advised that there was carefully targeted information through the Children and Families Information Service on the provisions provided by childcare providers.  None of the provision was funded unless it included the Early Years curriculum.  It was the role of the Children’s Centres to target those parents that may need help and how to access more affordable childcare.  The free offer for 4 year olds had been in place for some time and parents were helped to take up that offer for 15 hours a week, the take-up of which was high in Kent and the expansion of the two year old provision would help in the future.
• Children’s Centres were central in providing early years care and learning.  Most of the Children’s Centres in Kent were rated good or better.  One of the roles of the Children’s Centres was to target early learning and was part of the network of provision in any area for early years care and learning.  Part of the Strategy was to create more integration between the local providers in the areas.
• Mr Gough advised that a good deal of work was being carried out on the Children’s Centres consultation.  The ELS Directorate was keen to be part of the detailed discussion in terms of looking at the detail of any of the individual Children Centres. 

4.               RESOLVED that:-

a)         the responses to comments and questions by  Members be noted; and

b)         a draft of the Early Years and Childcare Strategy for 2014 – 2017 be submitted to this Cabinet Committee in December prior to consultation and further to the consultation, the final draft of the Strategy be presented to the next appropriate Education Cabinet Committee in 2014 for comment.

(Report by Mr R Gough, Cabinet Member for Education Health and Reform and Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education Learning and Skills)

(Ms S Dunn, Head of Skills and Employability was present for this item)

1.               The Cabinet Member, Mr Gough, introduced a report that outlined the proposals to develop an effective Health Needs Service across Kent, which enabled young people with Health Needs to access appropriate education provision.

2.               Following a brief discussion, the Chairman asked Members to vote on Option 1 and Option 2 set out in the report.   Member voted unanimously for Option 1.

3.               RESOLVED that the Education Cabinet Committee recommends Option 1, “Establish a county service with no PRU, based on the 8 Alternative Provision hubs recently established. Expand the Management Committees to ensure appropriate representation of Health Needs learners. This would assimilate the Health Needs service within the new PRU and Alternative Provision”, to establish a new Health Needs service for Kent to the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform and endorses the intention to carry out a consultation with Schools, FE Colleges and other Stakeholders.

(Report by Mr R Gough, Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform and Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

1.               The Cabinet Member, Mr Gough, introduced a report that provided an overview of Ofsted inspections in Kent for the school year 2012/13 and the overall improvement rate for Kent overall in Ofsted outcomes, in particular the improvement and progress achieved in improving the quality of education in Kent schools in 2012/13.

2.               Mr Gough highlighted that there was good progress with narrowing the gap for schools that were good and outstanding.  There were still demanding targets to be met with the schools that were inspected and judged to require improvement and found to be inadequate.  Work continued to be carried out to improve those results. 

3.               Mr Leeson considered the Ofsted results a good outcome for all the work carried out by many Kent Schools and a number of service providers that supported schools improvement.  The uplift of 70% of schools being good or outstanding overall in Kent compared with 59% of schools in 2012 were judged good or outstanding was a good rate of improvement.  Nationally, the rate of improvement was 9%.  In Kent the rate of improvement was 11%.

4.               Mr Gough and Mr Leeson responded to comments and questions by Members which included the following:

• Mr Leeson stated that the reasons why a special school’s Ofsted judgement may go down was not due to the type of  special needs of the children but due to the leadership of the school not being effective enough, the children were not being taught well enough and the progress the children were making was not good enough.
• A comment was made that the method of reporting the figures first then percentages was preferred.
• Members considered this a good and fair report.

5.               RESOLVED that:-

a)         the responses to comments and questions by Members be noted; and

b)         the positive outcomes and improved progress for Kent schools in Ofsted inspection outcomes in the 2012-3 school year be noted.

(Report by Mr R Gough, Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform and Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director for Education, Learning and Skills)

1.               Members commented on the decisions that were taken in accordance with the urgency procedure set out in the County Council Constitution.

2.               The Opposition Spokesmen for the Liberal Democrat and Labour Groups considered that they were not given enough notice and time to respond to the email regarding the urgent decision and requested that the electronic email be accompanied by a telephone call.

3.               RESOLVED that:-

a)         the responses to comments and questions by Members be noted; and

b)         Decision numbers: 13/00013/2 – Proposed relocation of Laleham Gap (Special) School and 13/00065 – Valley Invicta Partnership agreement were taken in accordance with the urgency procedure set out in appendix 4 Part 7 paragraph 7.18 of the Constitution be noted.