Minutes:
Teachers pay grant
Coral Miller stated that to support the pay award for September 2018-March 2019 the DfE had allocated a grant called the Teachers Pay Grant. The rates would be £16.40 per pupil for primary schools, £26.54 per pupil for secondary school and £65.65 per place for special schools.
Coral Miller stated that the estimated figure for the financial year 2019/20 were £28.29 per primary school pupil, £45.56 per secondary school pupil and £113.46 per special school place. She clarified that Wokingham did not qualify for London fringe allowance.
It was agreed that the details of the amount per pupil and a link to the website would be included with the minutes.
In response to a question Coral Miller stated that she would check if PRUs
were included. Coral has since confirmed that PRU’s are included.
The link below contains the information requested by Schools Forum:
Pensions
Schools Forum was informed that there was going to be an increase in employee contributions September 2020-23, the rates had gone up to 23.6%, representing a 7% increase. The DfE had committed to help until 2019/20, after that there would be a Spending Review 2019/20. Coral Miller asked schools to factor this cost into their budgets. Subsequently Coral informed that the DfE said that they would fund a 100% for the first year 2019/20 of the costs.
In response to a question Lynne Samuel stated that there was a degree of uncertainty in relation to future grants/support, pending the outcomes of the Spending Review 2019.
Business rates
Coral Miller stated that in previous years the Council had funded the difference between budgeted and actual costs, but this would not be possible going forward, as the Local Authority could not hold contingency from the Schools Block Budget, 100% of this funding needed to be allocated to schools and academies.
In response to a question Coral Miller stated that the worse affected school was going to have to pay £50k, but the average was between £1k and £6k.
Bob Watson stated that business rates were set by the central government and the local authority was merely the collecting agency.
Janet Perry pointed out that academies, who had charity status, paid much reduced business rates in relation to maintained schools.
Free school meals
Coral Miller agreed to look into the increase and report back to the Forum.
The link below contains the information requested by Schools Forum:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-school-meals-supplementary-grant-2018-to-2019
Catering contract
Sylvia Allen stated that it had recently come to light that the Council was paid 12 pence per school meal to administer the catering contract, this amounted to a significant amount of money. There had been a lack of transparency as schools were previously not aware of this and it was not understood how this money was spent. She reported that as a result many schools were considering pulling out of the contract.
The Chairman noted that Schools Forum guidelines and responsibilities required the Council to bring the details of any contract for school to Schools Forum before the contract was tendered.
Coral Miller and Lynne Samuel would look into this and report back to the December Schools Forum.
Schools Forum Guidance
The Chairman asked members to read the recently updated online resources in relation to Schools Forum.
Schools Forum Powers and Responsibilities:
He stated that there was also a self-assessment available, which will be discussed at the next Schools Forum with a view to using it to assess Schools Forum’s effectiveness.
Schools Forum Self Assessment Toolkit:
Other relevant guides can be found at the link:
https://www.gov.uk/search?q=Schools+Forum