Issue - meetings

To receive and consider the Growth Fund Update report.

Piers Brunning, Senior Specialist (People and Place) Strategy and Commissioning presented the Growth Fund Update report.

Some of the points made during his presentation are listed below:

·           The purpose of the Growth Fund was to fund the growth in demand for school places in the Borough.  There was continuing growth in Key Stage 2 due to families moving into the area and localised issues in Key Stage 1 which were linked to the strategic development of certain locations in the borough;

·           There was pressure for places in Years 7 and 8.  There was a complication in that there were more places in September at the start of the new school year than on national offer day.  It was believed that this was as a result of families sending their children to independent schools and no longer requiring a school place;

·           Another complication in planning was the element of ‘unknowability’, for example, the recent arrival of families from Hong Kong had not been considered when planning for school places and was causing challenges for school admissions;

·           The funding for 2021/22 relied on carry forward from last year.  Once the figures were finalised for the primary schools commitments, this would be reported to Schools Forum;

·           In order to meet the demand for places in Year 7 for September 2021 a number of schools had agreed to increase their capacity this year;

·           Payments were going through to support a number of projects, as listed in the report;

·           There may be a small surplus, after allowing for the carry forward by the end of the year.

During the discussion of the item the following comments were made:

·           Ben Godber stated that schools had been approached in March and asked to take on additional children, with funding to support them.  He asked why the report did not list all the schools that had agreed to take on additional children;

·           Piers Brunning stated that some schools had been asked to increase their admissions number with the expectation that their numbers would drop back to the original admission number by the start of the school year.  Other schools were expected to sustain the additional numbers into the new academic year, and only those schools would be given the additional funding.  If it transpires that schools are not dropping back to their original numbers and are having to incur additional costs, a conversation about funding will take place with those schools;

·           Members asked for a greater level of detail and transparency in the reporting of school admissions;

·           In response to a question, Piers Brunning stated that the opening or not opening of Matthews Green School was a decision for the Director of Children’s Services in conjunction with the Lead Member for Children’s Services.  He was unable to guarantee when the school would open;

·           Corrina Gillard expressed concern that there were 71 empty spaces in local primary schools, causing significant budgeting difficulties for those schools.  She was concerned that the opening of another primary school would exacerbate those difficulties;  ...  view the full minutes text for item 58