Minutes:
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 undertaken to research information) this was carried out although, the bulk of the requests did not reach that threshold. Mrs Rook gave her congratulations to the Awards Team for the superb service they provided.
(14) The Chairman requested that on behalf of the Committee congratulations be passed on to the Awards Team for all their excellent work.
(15) In reply to a question by Mr Smith, Mr Abbott explained that the balance control mechanism for schools was where reserves were above the thresholds and criteria that had been agreed with the Funding Forum. Money had been clawed back from school reserves and that had been redistributed. £1½ m in 2007/08 and £3000k this year. In some cases Primary schools had to give back one third of their budget. Mr Abbott felt that the key was to get the schools to recognise that money would not be sitting there for ever but was to be spent on pupils in schools now. Mr Abbott said there was a need for new partnerships with schools. He advised that this was being achieved by Officers working closely with the Schools Funding Forum and with the schools when their budgets were issued at the start of the school’s current year. At this time it was disclosed what the schools’ limit would be regarding claw back and the consequences of the schools going above a certain level would mean that they were at risk of claw back. Each school would receive this in a detailed letter; to date this had been working. Mr Cooke added that the exception to this was where a school had identified and needed to save for capital projects this funding was excluded.
(16) Mr Myers said that he had received positive feedback on the consultation with special schools.
(17) In response to concerns raised by Mr Pugh regarding the schools on the Isle of Sheppey claiming that they had received little professional support with the changes from a two tier to a three tier system, Mr Cooke asked Mr Pugh to let him have the details to allow him to deal with the issue outside the meeting.
(18) In response to a question by Mr Sweetland, Mr Abbott agreed to forward any feedback, on the impact of screening of the Headteachers’ Conference on Kent TV to Members.
(19) RESOLVED that the Members comments and requests and the verbal reports be noted.