Apologies were received from Andy Evans, Ed Gwillim, Kimberley Harley, Tim Knapp, Sian Lines, Norman Moon, Rachel Rice and Chris Baird.

There were no named substitutes.

In respect of item 5 on the agenda, the headteacher of Kingstone High School declared an interest as it was proposed that his school receive growth funding.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 25 October 2019.

Resolved: that the minutes of the meeting held on 25 October 2019 be approved as a correct record and signed by the chair.

To agree final budget proposals for recommendation to the cabinet member for children and families for school budgets, central school services and early years within the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) for 2020/21. The Budget Working Group ( BWG) meets on 10th January 2020 and their proposals will be set out in a supplementary report.

The Schools Finance Manager (SFM) introduced the report and highlighted that for some items the forum would make the decision and in others it would make recommendation to the cabinet member children and families to determine on behalf of the council. The main points of each recommendation were noted as follows.

Recommendation A

·         Allocated per pupil values as set out in the National Funding Formula in full;

·         Reflected the contents of the schools consultation paper;

·         Included the new mobility factor with threshold of 6%, a number of Herefordshire schools would benefit from this;

·         A number of schools, particularly larger schools, would benefit from the minimum total funding per pupil of £3750 for primary and £5000 for secondary.

Recommendation B

·         Allocated the anticipated growth fund allocation which had been consulted on in the autumn paper;

·         Followed the principles set out in the draft policy to be approved under recommendation E;

·         Following confirmation of basic need pressure in the area by the Interim Education and Capital Manager it was recommended that a growth allocation be made to Kingstone High School to support an increase in places from September 2020;

·         The allocation would need to continue in future years, as long as demand continued, until the increased PAN applied to all year groups;

·         The transfer to the high needs block would ensure that the SEN protection fund could continue for primary schools and be extended to include secondary schools, as set out in the consultation paper.

Recommendation C

·         This allocated the balance of funding from the higher than expected growth fund allocation and savings resulting from higher attainment in primary schools and consequent lower spend on low prior attainment;

·         It was proposed that £100k be allocated to support additional SEN activities around nurture provision, this had been targeted as the area of highest growth for specialist places;

·         The remaining excess was proposed to be distributed to all schools at a per pupil rate of £20;

·         The proposals were discussed in detail by the Budget Working Group (BWG);

·         The chair of the BWG stated that the principle of supporting additional nurture provision had been agreed but there was considerable debate at the working group meeting on the best method of delivery;

·         The Head of Additional Needs (HAN) was to bring more detailed proposals to a future meeting of the BWG for further discussion;

·         The BWG had considered whether to recommend a larger sum be allocated to the nurture provision project but had noted that this would have required a reduction in the per pupil distribution to all schools, the BWG recommended that the allocation remain as set out in the main report and that the level of funding be reviewed for 2021/22;

·         The HAN explained that a working group would be convened to discuss models of nurture provision, that one model would not necessarily fit the whole county and that anyone interested would be welcome to participate, it was proposed that the new provision be in place from September 2020;

·         It was recognised that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.

To consider any other business to be brough to the attention of the forum.

The chair of the children and young people’s scrutiny committee explained that there were vacancies for a primary and secondary parent governor to be co-opted as members of the scrutiny committee. Members of the forum were requested to highlight the vacancies to any parent governors who might be interested in serving on the committee. It was suggested that information could also be circulated through the regular newsletter to schools.