Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Corporate Director for Corporate and Support Services.

The report provides an update on the 2016/17 construction of the Schools Budget as per the agreements at the latest review group meeting and details of the proposed plan of work outlined for the next meeting ahead of the 2017/18 budget.

Schools Forum is asked to note the report and endorse the plans outlined at sections 4.1, 4.3 & 4.4.

Officer Contact: Peter Hughes on 0161 474 3947 or email: peter.hughes@stockport.gov.uk.  

A representative of the Corporate Director for Corporate and Support Services submitted a report (copies of which had been circulated) providing an update on the 2016/17 construction of the Schools Budget as per the agreements at the latest review group meeting and details of the proposed plan of work outlined for the next meeting ahead of the 2017/18 budget setting process.

The schools block element of the DSG was estimated to provide c. £1.840m of additional funding (headroom) based on an indicative pupil count of 37,036 pupils. £1.402m of the projected headroom would be deployed via local funding formula and £0.438 to high needs central block costs.

The current 2015/16 budget had a requirement to utilise £0.824m of reserves which was carried forward into 2016/17. The Local Authority had identified and discussed a series of “quick win” items with the review group and had considered and discussed the impact of each accordingly and had endorsed the Local Authority plan to reduce/remove the financial resource deployed to extended schools, inclusion support, central reserve and LSS/PRU.  It was estimated that all central school/DSG reserve levels would total c. £1m at 31 March 2016 and thus could be deployed to set a balanced 2016/17 budget without exhausting all reserve levels in full.

Concerns were raised with potential negative impact of reducing the Learning Support Service budget by £50,000 however it was explained that the LSS budget had historically been underspent as there was often additional income raised from Service Level Agreements and other Local Authorities using the service.

RESOLVED – (1) That the report be noted.

(2) That the plans outlined at sections 4.1, 4.3 & 4.4 in the report be approved.