Agenda item

(Verbal Update by Mr M Whiting, Cabinet Member, Education, Learning and Skills and Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director, Education, Learning and Skills)

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

1.               The Chairman invited the Corporate Director, Mr Leeson to introduce the report.  He highlighted the following points:

• The principles of having the Commissioning Plan are:

Ø     Good quality school places

Ø     Good preferences for parents

Ø     Manage and process resources in an organisation and systematic way

Ø     Bring the data up to date to be able to project forward growth [it was predicted that there would be significant growth in numbers for school places from 2015-16 onwards.

Ø     A range of meetings to take place in the districts with schools.  The data would not only be used for demographic information but to capture local issues.

Ø     The draft Plan would be revised and redrafted for the Autumn.  The final plan would be more detailed in what was happening in each district.

Ø     The Plan would include issues on Early Years and about the development of provision in Special Educational Needs would feature stronger in the Plan in future.

Ø     The Plan would be reviewed annually to assist with forecasting Capital Funding and investment required.

Ø     The Education Cabinet Committee would receive regular update reports.

a)    Mr Cubitt advised that he attended a Gravesham Forum meeting for regarding the Commissioning Plan, which other Members of this Cabinet Committee attended.  He asked that the following comments that were aired at that meeting be taken into consideration as part of the consultation comments for Gravesham:

Ø     There was concern that there was an increase in faith schools Published Admission Number (PAN) and not in mainstream schools.

Ø     There was concern on the numbers were about primary schools and not secondary schools.

Ø     The Diocesan Boards should be the point of contact if we want changes to the PANs of Church schools.

Ø     It was considered that the data used was heavily bias towards birth rates.  In Gravesend there were specific issues of migration fluctuation.

Ø     There was concern that the PAN being increased at St Botolph’s Church of England School, Northfleet and Rowhill School for children with special needs, Northfleet would not answer the problems in Gravesend.  There should be provision made in Ebbsfleet.

b)    Mr Christie added the following feedback from the Gravesham Forum:

Ø     there were concerns regarding the final number of houses being built by Land Securities in the area.  The agreed number was 350 but building had stopped at 330.  It was hoped that Land Securities would build the school and that the school would have a less rigid admissions criteria. 

c)     Mr Christie gave his opinion on the summary of responses received on the consultation that included the following:

Ø     he did not agree with the comments on; page 52 regarding the “Equality Impact Assessment”, page 61 Standards closures “Expansion of popular schools”, and on page 62 “Sevenoaks Satellite”. 

Ø     In response Mr Adams referred to the comment on the Equality Impact Assessment that said that Kent was violating its duty.  The issue of parent’s preferences mentioned in the comment was a discussion to be had.

d)    It was highlighted that the district and local authority need to fill the school governor vacancies.

e)    A Member pointed out that the data from Health appeared to be two 2 years out of date.  Mr Adams advised that the Public Health Observatory used data received form the General Practitioners. The difficulty with data was the interpretation around the data protection. The pin points were where the child lived, this information was now unavailable.  It was now available at district level.  Work had been undertaken with the University of Leeds on innovation forecasting ie if you have a number of children in a locality where did they go to school.  What was masked was where they lived.  The question to be answered was; do you expand where the schools are or where the children live.

f)      Other issues to be considered where the skewed information on housing developments information, migration forecasts which were inherently out of date

g)    In reply to whether there were to be expansions on FE colleges, Members were advised that this would be covered in the 14-24 Strategy which would feed into the Commissioning Plan.

2.               Mr Leeson advised that there needed to be a balance between improving the schools and parents preferences.  He also agreed to forward Mr Christie details on Land Securities in Gravesham.

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