Standards Fund Consultation Group

School Forum Wednesday 4th February 2009 Agenda Item 9 Annex A

Draft Minutes of Standards Fund Consultation Group

Committee Room 2

15/01/09 9.00am – 12.00pm

Attendees:

Stephanie MitchenerSchools, Children and Families (Chair)

Maggie Owens (MO)EPHA Lead Head Teacher

Simon Mason (SMa)Head Teacher, The HonywoodSchool

Linda Hughes (LH)Head Teacher, MoulshamJuniorSchool

Greta Taylor (GT)Governors Association

Jagdeep Ghataore (JG)Schools, Children and Families

Sue Stock (SS)Schools, Children and Families

Debbie Knopp (DK)Corporate IS

Dean Tandy (DT)Corporate IS

Alison Fiala (AF)Schools, Children and Families

Tracy Goodway (TG)Schools, Children and Families

Sean Wade (SW)Schools, Children and Families

Gareth Jones (GJ)Schools, Children and Families

Heather Faulkner (HF)Schools, Children and Families

Apologies

Jim MacDonaldSchools, Children and Families

Simon ThompsonHeadteacher, The NotleyHigh School

Introductions

JG welcomed everyone to the meeting, apologies were given and introductions were made.

Minutes of Previous Meeting

The previous minutes were agreed as an accurate record.

Matters Arising

As a result of item 2 on the previous minutes, TG, SW, AF, GJ, DT, and DK were presenting items at the meeting. LH joined the group as additional Primary Head. SS advised that the Standards Fund Guide has been received in draft and should be ready for the next meeting.

Agenda item 3

(a)SM welcomed DK to the meeting. DK briefed the meeting on the Essex School Collaborative Infrastructure (ESCIMO). She gave detailed background information and explained the benefits to schools, and that 20 primary and 15 secondary’s were involved. MO suggested various methods of making sure schools got the information about ESCIMO and that it would be helpful if a representative were to talk to EPHA/ASHE members, which DK agreed would be a good idea. DK went on to explain that there have been contractual problems with the supplier and she is due to attend a meeting tomorrow with the supplier to discuss, she will inform the next meeting of the outcomes. SM referred the meeting to the Standards Funds Expenditure Monitoring sheet and asked DK to explain the under spend, DK confirmed that all monies are accounted for and will be spent by August 2009. DK will be attending the next meeting to update.

(b)SM welcomed DT to the meeting. He presented his paper on the Harnessing Technology Grant. He briefed the meeting on the technical details of the upgrades to the broadband infrastructure. Installation costs have been committed, and work is due to be completed by the end of June. The carry forward remaining would then be put towards the roll out for Primary Schools. MO and SMa raised questions regarding the lack of collaboration between service providers, DT assured that this would be resolved, and if there would be any disruption to the network, DT again assured this would be minimal. DT explained that there would be excess costs but these have been accounted for and agreed. JG reiterated that additional sums must be spent by 31 March 2009. DT agreed to send the information to JG. DT also agreed to contact Martin Fee and the communications team to post information and links on the websites regularly accessed by schools. He also agreed to attend the EPHA meeting. SMa asked DT about the back-up facilities, DT explained that this would be for key data, and would be fully encrypted. It would be schools responsibility to schedule the back up and they could purchase more storage if needed. DT agreed to update the next meeting.

(c)SM welcomed AF to the meeting. She presented her paper and briefed the meeting. She explained that there have always been problems matching the standards funds for the academic year with the financial year. AF gave a breakdown of each project, the criteria for inclusion in the projects, what monies are allocated for and the successes/problems of the projects. An issue with MFL was raised in respect that not many primary schools had accessed the package, AF agreed to pass on information on various projects to EPHA and ASHE to get more schools involved. LH asked for clearer labelling when money comes into school from standards funds, SS agreed and this is being looked into.

(d)SM welcomed GJ to the meeting. He gave his apologies to the meeting for devolvements that have been sent out late to schools and some that have yet to go out. He explained that this was due to a delay in data retrieval that determines the amount to be devolved, but this should be resolved by the end of the month. He said that he would give an update at the next meeting.

(e)AF and HF presented the paper for the Targeted Improvement Grant. HF informed the meeting that there is a 351K under spend. She explained that this had been allocated to two schools, which had been agreed and will be overseen by the School Improvement Partnership Board and spent by August 2009.

(f)SM welcomed TG to the meeting. TG presented her paper on Making Good Progress (MGP). She gave the meeting a brief outline of the pilot, how schools were chosen and the outcomes. She explained that the pilot would be finishing in July 2009, and then it will be rolled out to all schools. She said there have been issues with recruiting tutors for the tuition aspect of the pilot, but this will be addressed by a recruitment campaign by the TDA. The 260k overspend would have to be sent back to DCFS as MGP was a pilot and funding was ring fenced. The monies collected back by the DCFS from schools for this pilot would then go back into funding for the roll out to all schools.

(g)SM welcomed SW to the meeting. SW presented his paper for Advanced Skills Teachers (AST) to the meeting. SW explained the reason for the large under spend, which was attributed to AST’s waiting for assessment and resignations. SW advised that a late request for two fully funded AST’s had been received and this would remove 240K from the overspend. SMa raised issues with the AST process and administration and suggested that an area model would be more efficient. SW agreed and said this was being looked at and has been proactive in engaging locality partnership working to look at the distribution of AST’s and funding in the future, AF and GJ would speak to Guy Naylor. It was recommended that the excess money be looked at by the Schools Forum and the possibility of Jim MacDonald constructing a formula to devolve the money.

Agenda Item 2

SM directed the meeting to the Standards Funds Expenditure Monitoring Sheet. Each grant was looked at and discussed and the following actions were recommended.

EMAS – request for Andrew Scott to attend the next meeting to discuss under spend and staff capacity for EMAS provision for the County. SS explained that some funding has been incorrect, but has now been corrected.

Extended Schools (Sustainability) – request for Jo Smith or Lonica Vanclay to attend the next meeting to discuss the under spend.

School Lunch – request for Jason Walmsley to attend the next meeting to discuss the over spend. SS is currently going through the payments and there appears to be central funding missing.

Integrated Support Services – to be discussed at Schools Forum.

Agenda Item 4

AOB

BP raised the issue of problems with matching the financial and academic years in terms of monies received and devolvements and asked if this could be looked at. He also reiterated the need for schools to be able to identify the origin of monies received into schools so these can be appropriately allocated to the correct project/area, SS is looking into the labelling of standards funds.

SM agreed to a request from the meeting to circulate the terms of reference of the Schools Forum to the Standards Funds Consultation Group (SFCG)

Date of next meeting

SS to advise the dates of the next meetings for SFCG