Month: March 2014

Incredible: Wirral Council officer states to EFA that special schools’ minimum funding guarantee is “unaffordable”

Incredible: Wirral Council officer states to EFA that special schools’ minimum funding guarantee is “unaffordable”

Incredible: Wirral Council officer states to EFA that special schools’ minimum funding guarantee is “unaffordable”

                                    

Labour councillors at a public meeting of Wirral Council's Coordinating Committee vote to consult on closing Lyndale School (27th February 2014)

Labour councillors at a public meeting of Wirral Council’s Coordinating Committee vote to consult on closing Lyndale School (27th February 2014)

I received a response yesterday from the Education Funding Agency to my Freedom of Information Act request about Wirral Council’s application for an exemption from the minimum funding guarantee (that was later withdrawn).

Wirral Council assumed it would make a successful application for an exemption from the 98.5% minimum funding guarantee. This was what led to the predicted shortfall in Lyndale School’s budget of £72,000 for 2014/15. This application was later withdrawn (before the Education Funding Agency reached a decision on it) which led to Lyndale School’s financial forecast for 2014/15 changing from a deficit to a surplus.

The detail of the rationale behind the application is interesting though and is included below. It seems to it was emailed to the Education Funding Agency by an Andrew Roberts (Senior Manager, School Funding & Resources). The date of the email isn’t included, however I’ve submitted an internal review request for that too.

What’s interesting is that it in the application Andrew Roberts states “However proposals include a contingency fund to financially support any specialist provision that may experience financial difficulties.” However at the Coordinating Committee meeting of the 27th February the eight Labour councillors voted against an amendment (six voted for the amendment who were the Lib Dem councillor, five Conservative councillors and the parent governor rep) proposed and seconded by the Conservative councillors that was “We would like to seek assurance that the required contingency funding is in place to top up the special educational funding to ensure that the level of funding required for the best care and education is provided for all children.”

Wirral Council’s Andrew Roberts also states “Without capping the MFG (minimum funding guarantee) costs an additional £800,000 which would be unaffordable, whilst capping would defer the introduction of the new top-up structure.”

This however seems to contradict what Surjit Tour stated at Budget Cabinet on the 12th February 2014 in his advice to Cabinet deciding on their recommendation to Council for the Schools Budget for 2014/15 (I’ve underlined the relevant section of what Surjit Tour said) which was

“Queries have been raised with regards to whether there is an impact on the outstanding call in, in relation to the Schools Budget which may have a direct impact.

One of them in particular is the proposals for changes to the school’s top up payments for schools with high needs. Members will be aware that the matter is to be considered by the Policy and Performance Coordinating Committee on the 27th February. The position with regards to the proposed Schools Budget is that it includes a contingency provision and that provision is considered sufficient to meet any potential financial implications that may arise as a result of the forthcoming call in hearing and therefore you can agree the, the proposed budget is both sufficient and sufficiently flexible to address any potential implications that may arise and that therefore means that the budget can be proposed to Council forthwith.”

The contingency referred to was for £908,900. At this point you might point out that £908,900 is more than enough to cover the £800,000 extra needed by the minimum funding guarantee. However if you read this report to the Wirral Schools Forum meeting of the 22nd January 2014 it states what the £908,900 contingency is planned to be used for and I quote:

Contingency. The contingency identified of £908,900 is required to cover the potential costs of:

  • Adjustments with the EFA for post 16 students. There are ongoing discussions about the costs of mainstream school and academy High Needs places (£6,000 per place) which potentially will cost £372,000
  • Any unforeseen consequences arising from the implementation and review of High Needs Top Ups.
  • Unfunded growth in place numbers – there has been a small net increase in the planned number of High Needs places
  • Any mismatch between places identified with providers and places taken up.
  • Inflationary pressures within Non Maintained Special Schools.
  • Uncertainty about the overall statement numbers

So with Wirral Council officers stating that funding Lyndale School is first “unaffordable”, then another officer stating that “provision is considered sufficient to meet any potential financial implications” is it any wonder that people are confused on this point?

The minutes of the Coordinating Committee deciding the call in state “The Committee noted that the minimum funding guarantee was now more affordable, therefore the application for an exemption from this requirement had been withdrawn.”

How can it be “more affordable” though? Has the designation of what the contingency fund to be used for changed from what was agreed by the Wirral Schools Forum in January (as outlined above) to a decision behind the scenes to withdraw the minimum funding guarantee exemption application and use the contingency to fund the minimum funding guarantee? Is the reason why funding is no longer mentioned with regards to Lyndale School because officers stated (at different times) that it was both affordable and unaffordable (and as the underlying budget hasn’t changed both positions can’t both be accurate can they)?

Wirral Council’s Julia Hassall now says that the consultation on closing Lyndale School is because of pupil numbers as there are twenty-three children at the school which has a capacity for forty. Following the review by Eric Craven there was a reduction in the planned admission number for Lyndale School last year from forty-five to forty. I’m sure Wirral Council (if it wanted to) could reduce the planned admission number at Lyndale School for future years to a lower number such as thirty or twenty-five.

Wirral Council’s policy on the admission arrangements for primary schools for 2015-16 was agreed by Cabinet last Thursday. In it it states at “3.5 Special Needs. All schools will be required to admit a pupil with a Statement of Special Educational Needs naming the school.”

Therefore if Wirral Council started naming Lyndale School in SEN statements, rather than sending more pupils to oversubscribed special schools such as Elleray Park (currently with 91 pupils and 80 places) wouldn’t this help increase numbers at Lyndale towards its place figure of forty?

What’s interesting is that money was put in the budget for next year to increase the numbers of places at Elleray Park by ten. So why can’t Wirral Council agree to reduce the number of places at Lyndale School by ten?

Below is Wirral Council’s application (later withdrawn) from Andrew Roberts for an exemption from the minimum funding guarantee which guarantees that schools receive at least 98.5% of the money they received the previous year.
——————————————————————————————————-

This letter is requesting exemption from the requirement for an SEN MFG included within the 2014 – 2015 DSG additional conditions of grant. Paragraph g “In deciding on top up funding rates for the pupils it will place in special schools …. and the total number and type of places received the same in the 2 financial years the school or Academy budget would receive by no more than 1.5% in cash between 2013 – 2014 and 2014 – 2015.”

Over the past 12 months a Schools Forum SEN finance group has met to develop proposals for high needs funding and particularly to agree a banded approach for specialist SEN provision.

A banded system (with 5 bands) was developed taking account of a number of issues:

  • The need for stability
  • The fluctuation arising from part year places and the need to have places available.
  • To take account of the increasing demands and population with social communication needs and to recognise the resource intensive nature of provision for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties.

These 5 bands have also been applied to SEN resourced base provision in mainstream schools and academies. The bands used take account of the same needs identified within Wirral’s 11 special schools and in addition gives an equivalent level of funding for each child.

Changes of this nature will result in movement of resources and a number of schools will as a result receive more funding and others will receive less. However proposals include a contingency fund to financially support any specialist provision that may experience financial difficulties.

The SEN top up proposals were subject to a full consultation with all schools and providers in Wirral, commencing on 3rd July and closing on 18th October. The consultation papers included an illustration for each school of the funding a school might receive using current numbers and numbers at capacity, compared with the level of funding provided in 2013 – 2014. In addition there has been a series of meetings with schools to discuss the changes suggested.

24 responses were received including 10 out of 11 special schools and 6 out of 14 school SEN resource bases. Overall the responses were supportive and in favour of the local authority’s proposals.

Since the consultation was launched schools were asked a supplementary question about views on seeking an exemption from the requirement for an SEN MFG. This approach has been adopted because the MFG will not work with the new top up bands. Without capping the MFG costs an additional £800,000 which would be unaffordable, whilst capping would defer the introduction of the new top-up structure.

Schools were asked for their preferences based on a table illustrating:

No MFG (7)
An Average MFG (phased over 3 years) (5)
A full MFG (0)
The responses are shown in brackets above.

This issue was discussed at the Schools Forum meeting on 13th November 2013. The recommendation from the forum was “That Forum supports an application to the EFA for an exemption from the requirement to use an MFG (Option 1) on Top Ups for 2014 – 2015, and failing that Forum request the EFA agree the use of an average MFG (Option 2)”

A number of papers are attached to this e-mail including:

School Forum Agenda from 13 November 2013:
– Element 3 Top up funding arrangements for pupils with high needs (SEN) and for pupils attending Alternative Provision. (This report includes the consultation paper and letter to schools about the MFG)
– An extract from the Schools Forum minutes

Please let me know if you would like further details.

I look forward to hearing from you

Yours sincerely

Andrew Roberts signature

Andrew Roberts
Senior Manager – School Funding & Resources
Children and Young People’s Department
Wirral Council
Tel: 0151 666 4249
Fax: 0151 666 4338
andrewroberts@wirral.gov.uk

Visit our website: www.wirral.gov.uk

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Cabinet agree to Wirral Council using £100,403 grant to increase voter registration in “deprived wards”

Cabinet agree to Wirral Council using £100,403 grant to increase voter registration in “deprived wards”

Cabinet agree to Wirral Council using £100,403 grant to increase voter registration in “deprived wards”

                      

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The Cabinet item on the individual electoral registration scrutiny report starts at 3:16 in the video above.

Councillor Jean Stapleton addresses the Cabinet about upcoming changes to the way people register to vote
Councillor Jean Stapleton addresses the Cabinet about upcoming changes to the way people register to vote

The first main item on the Cabinet last agenda was a scrutiny report on individual electoral registration that was referred to it by the Policy and Performance Coordinating Committee at its meeting on the 15th January. The original report to that committee can be read here, along with the scrutiny report as the report on Cabinet’s agenda was just a copy of the minutes of that meeting. It does however raise the question of as there have been five Cabinet meetings since the Coordinating Committee meeting of the 15th January (last Thursday’s was the fifth) why hasn’t it appeared on an agenda before now?

However, Councillor Jean Stapleton the Chair of the Scrutiny Panel addressed Cabinet on the subject of individual electoral registration (the other panel members were Councillor Moira McLaughlin, Councillor Denise Roberts and Councillor Steve Williams whose mug shots can be found on at the bottom of page 14 of the
report). Cllr Jean Stapleton explained what officers had told them they were doing to prepare for individual electoral registration.

In case you are wondering what individual electoral registration actually means, at the moment each year a form goes out to each household annually to confirm who is registered to vote there. However there will be a change (although not until after the next set of elections in May) and voters will be expected to register to vote on an individual, not household basis.

Councillor Jean Stapleton said that officers had told them that based on their test of matching data on the electoral roll with other information held by Wirral Council such as Council Tax information, that it was estimated (across the whole of Wirral) that 89% of people would be transferred to the new register automatically. However this percentage was lower in the “deprived areas” (and although she didn’t explicitly say it the wards that return Labour councillors at elections). She wanted Wirral Council to actively target these areas to maximise the numbers of registered voters and to use the additional funding they had been given this financial year by the Cabinet Office of £100,403 with a further unknown amount expected from the Cabinet Office in 2014/15.

She felt that it should be a high priority in 2014 as she felt that the public were virtually unaware of this change. She said that non-IER registered voters would remain on the register for the 2015 General Election (originally the change was planned to be in place for the 2015 General Election but proved too contentious) and said that once the new register was published on the 1st December 2015 that these non-IER registered voters would be removed. She asked Cabinet to accept the recommendations.

Councillor Phil Davies said, “Ok thanks Jean. I mean I think it’s an excellent piece of work, I think you’ve highlighted I think a key issue really in the report which is about those areas of the Borough where there’s a need to do some targeted work to increase registration. Just to explain a little bit about what form that targeted work might take out of interest?”

Councillor Jean Stapleton said that there would be opportunities to target particular areas, even to drill down to postal districts “within a deprived ward”. She said it was a fantastic opportunity for Wirral Council to go round “knocking on doors”. Cllr Stapleton said that they pass “swathes of doors” where people weren’t registered to vote and she said it was an opportunity to talk to those people. She said she was “delighted with the opportunity” but that the real worry she had was over the register used at the 2016 elections.

Councillor Ann McLachlan, Cabinet Member for Governance and Improvement said, “Yes, thank you Chair. I mean first of all I’d like to say how I welcome this report and I’d like to start by congratulating the members of the panel on a really excellent piece of work. When we set up the policy and performance committees, this is exactly the kind of work that we hoped would be done as scrutiny work.

Thanks Jean, Councillor McLaughlin Moira McLaughlin and Denise Roberts and Councillor Steve Williams for plodding through and it really is an excellent piece of work. The report it does really highlight you know the areas of deprivation that we are going to target them and I’ve noticed that there is issues around possibly using local media, radio, ICT and of course you know the key role of elected Members is in highlighting .. you know those crucial tools to ensure that we want to make sure people are retained on the register because although there’ll be this changeover to the new register, people are going to be asked for additional information. Where that information around National Insurance numbers and dates of birth is not there, if people don’t respond and react to that they could fall off the register.

So it’s really key that we ensure that we you know as elected Members, but as Council play a role in that and I hope that some of that work that we’ll do in you now using the money that’s being fully funded, is being fully funded by the government I hope we’ll use that work in terms of making sure that we use you know ICT, use local media to ensure that we do update, to ensure that people aren’t but I notice as well in the report that you highlight the work and preparation that the Council has already done and in terms of data matching we came out quite above the average really on the work that’s been done so far and we’ve got in place an electoral management system and I think we’re working closely with other authorities on this, you know … Merseyside wide authorities so there’s some kind of project plan for the media to ensure that when the Electoral Commission fund and launch their campaign that we’re running with our campaign locally.

So you know I think as I said this is an excellent piece of work, a fully funded piece of work. I fully endorse the report and completely accept the recommendations that are there which I’m sure we’ll want to do and a fabulous piece of horizon scanning work so you know we need to pass on our thanks to the members of the panel and I’d like that recorded thank you.”

Cllr Jean Stapleton responded to Cllr Ann McLachlan’s comments. Cllr Phil Davies referred to recommendation three in the report that “Chairs of constituency committees are requested to include IER
as a topic for discussion as part of their forward planning in the New Year”. He said that they would have to pass this request on as not all constituency chairs were councillors.

Cllr Phil Davies went on to describe it as an “excellent piece of work” and congratulated her and the team behind it. Cllr Jean Stapleton congratulated the officers and Cabinet agreed to endorse all the recommendations.

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Wirral Council reconsiders secrecy over hourly rates for solicitors and barristers and decides to keep them secret

Wirral Council reconsiders secrecy over hourly rates for solicitors and barristers and decides to keep them secret

Wirral Council reconsiders secrecy over hourly rates for solicitors and barristers and decides to keep them secret

                              

Last year I blogged about how Wirral Council had entered into a contract with solicitors and barristers chambers to keep the hourly rates it was being charged “confidential” (and therefore redacted on the invoices and contract I requested to inspect), when I exercised my right under s.15 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 c.18 as part of last year’s audit to inspect various legal invoices Wirral Council had received and the hourly rates included as part of the North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement.

There’s a Management Board for the North West Legal Consortium Collaboration Agreement and a Consortium Contract Manager and last year I asked for their views on the redaction and pointed out that the contract does allow the hourly rates for legal services to be disclosed with the consent of the companies involved. The response I got is detailed in excerpts from two emails below.

Interestingly the contract also specifies in pages 15 and page 16 that if there are any FOI requests relating to these matters that the Consortium Contract Manager must be notified of any FOI requests relating to it (which is probably why Cllr Ian Lewis’ recent FOI request about the fee Wirral Council paid to the barrister Sarah O’Brien took four weeks to answer.

I thought the answer to the question about supplying the legal rates that I received last year from Wirral Council would be interesting to publish here as it runs completely counter to what politicians say in public about the Labour administration being “open and transparent”.

I’ve not included the person who sent these two emails as he’s merely passing on a response he’s received and I don’t want anyone to “shoot the messenger”.

from: @wirral.gov.uk
to: john.brace [at] gmail.com
cc: Financial Services Coordination
date: 30 August 2013 17:04
subject: RE: legal invoices

Hello Mr Brace,

Thank you for your e-mail

…….

Redaction of Evershed’s and Weightman’s invoices

Your request has been forwarded to the Management Board of the NW Legal Consortium which meets next week. We will get back to you once a response is received from the NWLC Management Board on this matter. Depending upon the outcome of this we can then take a view on your subsequent questions.

I am on leave for the next two weeks. If you have any further need to contact us could you please send it to the financial Services coordination e-mail address and copy in my email address. Matters can then be picked up in my absence.

——————————————————————————————————-

from: @wirral.gov.uk
to: john.brace [at] gmail.com
date: 19 September 2013 16:02
subject: RE: legal invoices
mailed-by: wirral.gov.uk

Redaction of Evershed’s and Weightman’s invoices

Your points have been put to the consortium as requested. The response received is contained below.

There was expectation from the bidders that the hourly rates were provided in confidence. The expectation of bidders whilst submitting the hour rates the information would be used only for the purposes of the tenders only.
We believe that disclosure of the hourly rates would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the law firms that tendered for the contract. As this exemption relates to the legal firms, the Council sought the views of the firms. In response, the Council was provided with the responses below:

(a) The rates on which our legal services are provided to clients are highly sensitive and often pivotal in whether we win or loose work from a client;
(b) There is a real and significant risk that disclosure of the Rates would enable our competitors to undercut us when the Council puts its legal services out to tender again, and also where we are bidding for other public sector work;
(c) The rates were provided in a highly competitive environment and they remain current. The market in which we operate is highly competitive and – more than ever during the recession – clients have been willing to ‘shop around’ for legal services with hourly rates being a key determining factor as to where to place work. Given the Rates are highly competitive (significantly below even our standard local government rates), it is a real risk that this could lead to clients on less competitive rates taking their work elsewhere or not placing work with us. It is also probable that, if the Rates were disclosed and became more widely known, some of our existing Clients will seek to re-negotiate rates to the level of or close to the Rates which again could lead to a significant financial impact on the law firms. Law firms have not gone unscathed in the recession and many firms have been forced to make redundancies and some have even gone out of business. Disclosure of the Rates could therefore lead to not-only a direct and significant impact on our revenue but also damage to our reputation and to the confidence that our clients have in us;
(d) For the reasons described above, disclosure of rates information for legal services could deter legal services providers who may think twice about whether working for public sector clients in the future. This could lead to a market in which the public sector has a diminished pool of legal services providers to choose from (driving quality down and rates up).

If you wish to pursue this latter matter further you would probably need to take your own legal advice regarding the contract confidentiality versus the Audit Commission Act. The Council has erred on the side of contract confidentiality.

The guidance issued by the Audit Commission regarding inspection rights does state that ‘Your right to inspect the accounts is personal which means the external auditor can not get involved.’ My reading of this would mean that neither Grant Thornton nor the Audit Commission would be able to provide a view on this issue.

I hope that this answers your queries.

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Wirral Borough Council v McAdam and S & E Lomax trading as Lomax Transport Services v Sherrard, Sherrard and Wirral Borough Council

Wirral Borough Council v McAdam and S & E Lomax trading as Lomax Transport Services v Sherrard, Sherrard and Wirral Borough Council

Wirral Borough Council v McAdam and S & E Lomax trading as Lomax Transport Services v Sherrard, Sherrard and Wirral Borough Council

                         

There are two cases coming up this week in the Birkenhead County Court involving Wirral Council.

The first is on Tuesday 18th March 2014 in front of Deputy District Judge Abberton starting at 2pm and is expected to last ten minutes. The case is because Wirral Council is seeking a charging order (a charging order is a charge on a property registered with Land Registry which is paid if the property is sold) against a defendant referred to as McAdam. The case reference number for that case is 3bi07744.

In the second case Wirral Council looks like it’s listed as a defendant. The second case is down for Thursday at noon in front of Deputy District Judge Grosscurth (the same Deputy District Judge who decided on a court order last year in the case involving Kane and Woodley and a possession order for Fernbank Farm). It’s for a one hour case management conference. The party’s names in that case are listed as “S & E Lomax T/A Lomax Transport Svcs – Sherrard/Sherrard/WBC” which I presume means that the plaintiff is S&E Lomax trading as Lomax Transport Services and the defendants are Sherrard, Sherrard and Wirral Borough Council. The case reference number for that case is 3YJ60591.

I would guess that the first case is either a charging order to do with either work that the Council has carried out following a planning enforcement matter or about an outstanding debt. Lomax Transport Services is a road haulage business based in Rochdale. Quite who or what Sherrard are I’m not sure.

If anyone has further details on what these two mystery cases are about please leave a comment.

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Cabinet agrees school meal price hike to £2.30 from September; government makes meals free for first 3 years of school

Cabinet agrees school meal price hike to £2.30 from September; government makes meals free for first 3 years of school

Cabinet agrees school meal price hike to £2.30 from September; government makes meals free for first 3 years of school

                         

Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) explains to Wirral Council's Cabinet about the changes to school meals cost and entitlement
Councillor Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) on the far left of the photo explains to Wirral Council’s Cabinet about the changes to the cost of school meal cost and what universal free school meals means

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The item on changes to the price of school meals starts at 2:09 in the video above and the report to Cabinet and its appendix are available on Wirral Council’s website by following those links.

One of the decisions made at last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting was to increase the price of school meals to £2.30 from September 2014. This will increase the price of school meals at three nursery schools, sixty-four primary schools and thirteen special schools on the Wirral.

Just under half (48%) of school meals are however provided free. Families on means tested benefits such as income support, income-based Jobseekers Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, receiving support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the guaranteed element of State Pension Credit, Child Tax Credit (providing the person working is not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and has an income of less than £16,190), Working Tax Credit run on and Universal Credit may be entitled to free school meals.

However those who are entitled to free school meals don’t receive this automatically and have to first apply to Wirral Council. This can be done on Wirral Council’s website by clicking on the link on this page “Apply for Free School Meals”.

The increase in the school meals cost is however the bad news, but there is good news. From September (as part of the reforms the government are bringing as part of the Children and Families Bill) there will be a legal requirement that school meals will be free for all children (not just children from families on the means tested benefits mentioned earlier) in reception as well as years 1 and 2. This will have effect from September 2014.

To cope with the increased demand that Wirral Council predicts will happen once there is a free school meal entitlement for all children in reception as well as years 1 and 2, Wirral Council are starting a recruitment process to hire a further eighty to a hundred people to work in school kitchens preparing the extra meals. Wirral Council will be receiving extra money from the government to pay for this extra free school meals entitlement.

The price increase and putting in place arrangements for the start of universal free school meals for infants from September were both agreed by Cabinet. However the topic will also be discussed at a future meeting of Wirral Schools Forum.

Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) had this to say about it at the Cabinet meeting, “This report is in two parts Chair, part one is to increase the price of a paid meal in schools from £2 to £2.30 with effect from September 2014. The second part is to implement government policy with the introduction of universal free school meals for infant aged children.

I’ll just take the first one free school meal policy. Metro provide to the authority meal service for eighty schools, nursery, primary and special and has a turnover in excess of £4 million. Food costs are increasing and unit costs remain historically in excess of £2.80. With a charge of £2 for each meal there is a significant subsidy. Decision about the price of a main meal is taken by government bodies taking account of local authority costs.

Many other authorities in the area that we’ve looked at currently charge in excess of £2 per a meal although none charge £2.30. Can I just say we haven’t got the figures from other local authorities for this year so we’re talking about what the charges were last year and some of those are in excess of £2?

The increase recommended that some, not all inflationary pressures over the period to help the Metro trading account achieve and maintain a balanced position. The cost of meal production will be reviewed and an expansion of the service will provide greater economies of scale through better financial monitoring.

The second part is on universal free meals. I think this has been adopted by the Deputy Leader in the last week or so. This is a new national policy initiative backed by legislation to provide all infant age children in schools with a free meal. Plan for this change, some additional equipment and alterations is needed. A capital grant of £623,802 has been allocated and should be included within the capital program.

Schools will be paid £2.30 by the government for each additional meal produced. It’s anticipated that Metro meal volumes will increase by 80% in September with an ongoing grant in the full year for schools of £3.5 million. The additional revenue and this is good news again funding will fund additional food production and the need for more staff in kitchens. We’re talking about eighty to a hundred posts in Metro kitchens.

At this time proposals have not been considered by the Schools Forum and the headteachers groups although this will happen prior to implementation. I’ve got three recommendations, that one that the price of a paid school meal is increased to £2.30 from September of 2014 in primary schools where their services are provided by Metro services and that this increase is recommended to governing bodies of primary and special schools.

Two subject to Council approval, that the capital grant received will implement universal free school meals for infants in maintained schools totalling £623,802 is included within the capital grant for 2014-15 and is used to progress a range of schemes described and thirdly that Metro school kitchen staffing numbers are increased to take into account the additional meal numbers with costs funded by schools and the Department for Education revenue grant based on £2.30 per an additional free meal served. Thank you Chair.”

Cllr Phil Davies replied, “OK, thanks very much, can we agree those recommendations?”

Cabinet agreed the recommendations.

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