Agenda item

To receive, for approval, the Education Commissioning Plan 2016 – 20.

Cabinet received a report seeking agreement of the updated Commissioning Plan for Education 2016-20.  The Leader invited Mr Roger Gough, Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform and Patrick Leeson, Corporate Director of Education and Young People’s Services to introduce the item and reported that Professor Ann Bamford, of the Arch Diocese of Southwark would be speaking to the item.

Mr Gough began by referring to the following matters:

1. That the Commissioning plan had been in existence since 2012 and was updated annually.
2. He reported that the plan predicted an accelerated increase in the need for secondary school places.  In recent years the focus had been on the expansion of primary schools and this was maintained in 2016-17 where 16 additional permanent forms of entry were planned compared to 6 in secondary schools.  This would level out in the following year with secondary expansions taking over from 2018-19.
3. The Commissioning plan was designed taking in to account evidence and projections from a number of sources including birth rates, inward migration and significant actual, and planned, house building and although the increase was likely to be county wide there were likely to be pockets of acute pressure, North West Kent in particular.
4. The report included information on financing and it was clear that there were likely to be pressures on delivery of the plan.  Work would be undertaken to ensure that the programme was delivered and alternative means of delivery investigated to ensure that this was done in the most cost effective manner while still achieving the objectives of the local authority.
5. Other changes to the plan included strengthening of sections on Special Education Needs, Early Years and Post 16 education.
6. Referring to the speaker in attendance, Professor Ann Bamford, Mr Gough reported that they had met and discussed each school in detail and that he hoped it had been helpful.  He liaised with District Councils about the plan as a matter of custom and felt it was sensible to also include the three diocese in Kent in these discussions

Patrick Leeson, Corporate Director of Education and Young People’s Services spoke to the item and thanked the schools of Kent for the help that they had provided to the local authority in delivering the plan to date.  Approximately 25% primary schools had been expanded and that could not have been achieved without significant input and cooperation from Head teachers and governing bodies.  Going forward, the plan would be even more challenging to deliver; by 2019-20 the plan projected the need for 40 additional forms of entry in primary schools and 39 in secondary schools. This would create 4000 additional places, as reported, the balance would shift toward the need for secondary school places and they could often be more challenging to provide.  In addition the capacity to expand existing schools would continue to reduce and therefore create a reliance on new schools being created.  One route to achieving the creation of new schools was through sponsored arrangements for free schools and academies and KCC was working hard with the government to make sure that any new schools were located in areas of basic need. In the future decisions would need to be made about whether to continue to receive proposals from the department on an adhoc basis or whether the local authority should run a competition on the open market to deliver schools in an identified area.  It was important that Members recognised the shifting landscape of education provision in Kent, and nationally; opportunities to make decisions and assert influence were reducing and a balance had to be sought between meeting the need for places, satisfying parental expectations and delivering the programme within cost, the expansion of some schools was prohibitively expensive and this had been an issue with some of the proposals made by the Arch Diocese of Southwark.

Professor Ann Bamford, Director of the Education Commission for the Arch Diocese of Southwark spoke to the item for three, as invited; in particular she referred to the following:

1. That she was pleased to hear that KCC valued the partnership working that had taken place to date.  The partnership between church and state and the excellent work to provide places for children in Kent between them, remained strong.
2. That the Arch diocese had made a written response to the plan and that had been included in the papers for the meeting.  It was enthusiastic about the general proposals for the expansion programme and welcomed the sensible principles underpinning choices for expansion. The Commission had undertaken its own work and had identified schools that met all of the criteria for expansion.  At the meeting to which the Cabinet Member had referred, each catholic school in the county had been assessed in order to identify those that could be cost effectively expanded and Prof. Bamford had been able to share with the Cabinet Member the innovative ways that the Commission work with other authorities to provide low cost and efficient expansion of our schools.
3. That 90% of catholic schools in Kent were rated as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ but the diocese was concerned that the proportion of places in these high performing catholic schools has declined steadily in Kent.  In real terms there had been a decrease of just over 10% as the catholic sector has declined by 0.5% while the overall sector has increased by approximately 9%. 
4. The proportion of Catholic children within the pupil population in Kent was approximately 10% while the provision of catholic school places currently hovered at approximately 5%.  Furthermore, Prof. Bamford claimed that inward migration strongly favoured catholic families especially those from Poland and other Eastern European countries.  Yet, despite this and the large number of expansions in the primary school sector, the catholic sector had not had any increase in places, funded by KCC, in the last 5 years.
5. That the commission was pleased that three catholic schools had been identified for expansion in the coming year and hoped that this trend would continue.  The Commission believed that the catholic school sector could make a valuable and positive contribution to the provision of additional places for all children in Kent and asked Cabinet Members for their support in redressing the decline in places that had occurred over last 5 years.

The Leader thanked Professor Bamford and following a question she confirmed that currently the Catholic church could not sponsor free schools as any religious requirement for pupils was capped at 50% and this would not accord with the charity law by which catholic schools are governed.  However the government was revisiting this position and if the cap were amended the diocese would be keen to open free schools.

Mr Gary Cooke, Cabinet Member for Corporate and Democratic Services welcomed the plan and the success it had brought to date in achieving its aims, not least facilitating parental choice.  He also highlighted the good work of the property group in delivering the expansion programme.  The Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform responded to report that, secondary offer day had just passed and had seen an increase in the number of families achieving their first preference and a significant reduction in the those families who had not secured any of their choices.