Issue - meetings

That the process of establishing a Wokingham Multi Academy Trust be initiated with relevant exploration undertaken by a Member/Officer Working Group and recommendations from that group being reported to the Executive for sign-off as appropriate.

The Executive considered a report relating to a proposal to explore the feasibility of establishing a Wokingham Multi Academy Trust (MAT).

The Executive Member for Children’s Services went through the rationale for setting up an MAT which included the recent White Paper, the inevitable change to the role of the local authority going forward and proposed changes to the funding formula and changes and reductions to educational grants.  All of these changes would lead to funding implications for the Council and would result in not enough revenue being available to support all the services that were currently provided to schools.

Councillor Haitham Taylor advised that the Council had been in discussion with local schools and currently 30 schools had expressed an interest in potentially joining a MAT in Wokingham.  Areas that could potentially be included within the MAT were school improvement and traded services, some safeguarding functions, the virtual school which looked after the education of children in care and some special educational needs and disability functions.

In relation to the governance of a MAT it was noted that only 20% of the local authority could be part of the Trust although it was acknowledged that there was flexibility within it and also charges could be levied to pay for some of the services it would provide.

Councillor Haitham Taylor informed the meeting that there was a substantial cost in transferring schools from a local authority school over to an academy and it was estimated that it would cost in the region of £400k if all the current schools transferred.  This figure was dependent on how many schools actually converted.  A letter had been written to the Secretary of State expressing the Council’s concerns over the extra cost and burden of schools converting to academies and asking for additional funding to be provided.

There was also a potential loss of £1m in business rates due to the fact that when schools converted to academies they acquired charitable status; which meant that they paid lower business rates.

The areas that the task and finish group would focus on were set out in the report and it was intended that their recommendations would be reported back to the Executive potentially around December time.

RESOLVED:  That the process of establishing a Wokingham Multi Academy Trust be initiated with relevant exploration undertaken by a Member/Officer Working Group and recommendations from that group being reported to the Executive for sign-off as appropriate.