School Admissions Benchmarking

Jim Leviers, Interim Assistant Director for Education asked Schools Forum if there was funding available to commission this piece of work.

The following comments were made during the discussion of this item:

·           Schools Forum had been asking for benchmarking for the last two years in order to understand how the service provided by the Local Authority compared, financially, with other local authorities;

·           Jim Leviers asked Schools Forum to consider how important this piece of work was and if members wished to invest in commissioning it;

·           Paul Miller stated that the school admissions service cost approximately £450k, however it was not known how this compared with other local authorities;

·           In response to a question Coral Miller stated that the budget for school admissions had reduced from previous years;

·           It was not clear how this piece of work would be funded and if it was worth spending the necessary money to carry out the work.

Paul Doherty, Assistant Director for Education stated that he would look into undertaking the benchmarking exercise with resources from within his department.  He stated that the volume of school admissions work was variable, and that mid-year school admissions created a lot of work.  He stated that he would update Schools Forum at the next meeting.

Members noted that with the new houses around the Borough there had been an increase in the number of mid-year school admissions.

High Needs Block

It was reported that a High Needs Block Task and Finish Group had now been set up and that this would be discussed later in the Agenda.

Catering contract

Lynne Samuel, Senior Finance Specialist, People Services explained that the schools catering contract was operated as a traded service, therefore individual schools had the option on whether to buy in or not, as such any retender would not fall under the criteria set out in the Schools Forum powers and responsibilities guidance published by the Department for Education (DfE).

Lynn Samuel stated that there was no agreed rate per meal, therefore it was unclear where the quoted 12p was derived from.

Lynn Samuel stated that the Council funded the maintenance and upkeep of kitchens for schools who bought in to the contract through the management charge levied for the service and an element of non-ring-fenced capital funds.  The supplier operated a profit share (rebate) with the Council based on the overall performance of the contract each year.  This was completely independent of the management fee paid by schools.  The level of rebate received from the contract in the last financial period did not exceed the investment made by the Council under the current contract.

Lynne Samuel stated that as with the catering contract, both Broadband and ICT operated as a traded service where schools made individual decisions to buy in or not.

Lynne Samuel stated that the briefing note would be circulated with the minutes and she offered to speak to any school who had bought into the contract who wished further clarifications.

Corrina Gillard asked what rebate rate was received last year and who made the decision as to how much the contract cost, she felt that the purported 8k charge to draw up the contract was expensive.  Lynne Samuel agreed to find out who the contractor was and report back to Schools Forum.