Tag: Wirral Schools Forum

What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”

What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”

What did officers say about Lyndale School in reply to “how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?”

 

Councillor Paul Doughty asks a question of Julia Hassall about confidence in the Lyndale School closure consultation

Councillor Paul Doughty asks a question of Julia Hassall about confidence in the Lyndale School closure consultation

Julia Hassall (Director of Children’s Services) and David Armstrong (Assistant Chief Executive) answer questions from councillors on the Lyndale School closure consultation decision

Continuing from yesterday’s transcript of the Coordinating Committee meeting is a transcript of the next fourteen minutes of what officers said at the Coordinating Committee meeting of the 27th February 2014 that was to reconsider the Cabinet decision to consult on closing Lyndale School. On April 2nd, Wirral Council plan to start a twelve week consultation on the closure. The Cabinet report titled “Report seeking approval to consult on the closure of Lyndale School” can be read on Wirral Council’s website.

JULIA HASSALL
..are all included within the admissions book.

(heckling) I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it.

JULIA HASSALL
OK, if there are individual parents who are saying this evening they’ve not received that, then that’s something I will continue to look into.

(heckling)

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
So, quite right. My second question is errm, if you look at the, well the information tonight page 141, 140 to 141 2.5 if you skip the bullet points and go straight to the paragraph at the top of page 141, I won’t read the whole paragraph out but it just says that the changes proposed over a two year period, April 2014 to 16 and will be kept under review with regular reports to the Schools Forum. You’re looking to consult on closure for Lyndale, oh sorry.

JULIA HASSALL
Sorry Chair, is this the second report?

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
It’s the err…

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
The first.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
It’s the 21st of March?

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Quite right, that is under the funding report.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Oh no, no, no. Oh right. Maybe I should ask that? It’s not about funding.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
It is under the funding report. I’m afraid, sorry.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
OK, I’ll hold back on that. I’ll hold back on that question but I won’t forget.

Right, my next two questions are for David. You just said that you were involved when Lyndale sort of moved from Clatterbridge. How big’s the area, the size around Lyndale School’s on at the moment?

DAVID ARMSTRONG
I can honestly say Councillor Fraser that I don’t know the answer because I’ve deliberately because I don’t want it to confuse the debate and become a distraction, we have done no action whatsoever looking at the Lyndale site.

I said to Pat this evening after the parents spoke at the last meeting, I would very much like to have visited the school and have a look around, so I did talk to Pat but also to remind myself about the school as I was a mainstream teacher.

I deliberately haven’t done that because if I go to the school particularly with my current monitoring responsibilities everyone will think I’ve come to look at the building or look at the site or look at the land. I know the area that the site occupies but genuinely myself and no one else in my team that work with me would have come to look at the site. So I couldn’t actually quote that figure tonight.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Well if you’ve got, this leads me on to another point, without being difficult surely the Council has maps that you could look at? And also to see the size of the land? And also if the numbers at Lyndale are going down why are you extending Elleray Park?

(applause)

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
When my children went to school and I could choose the school, if there weren’t enough places there tough, you had to go to another school. Obviously it’s slightly different with special needs but I don’t understand why you’re not sending, suggesting that children go to Lyndale (making the most of the capacity)? Also I’d be interested if you looked at the map, how much money you would expect to get if you sold that land?

(applause)

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, I’ll allow the officers to reply to that and then is that your questions finished?

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Sorry no, I’ve got one more.

DAVID ARMSTRONG
Thank you Chair, yeah but clearly I could look at maps Councillor Fraser. As far as I’m concerned it would be totally irrelevant to the discussion here, which is about whether we should consult on whether to close the school.

I tried to explain, that I am known as the asset person in the Council and currently I have all the baggage and tags that go with that. There has been no work done on looking to dispose of the site.

I think it is useful, very useful that you raised that point because I would just like to take you briefly through the process because if I set that out now then I think it should clear it away for future debate.

The work to Elleray Park stems from a Cabinet report from 2009, where we were asked to go away and bring forward plans to build two new schools, one at Stanley and one at Elleray Park linked to primary school sites.

Clearly we’ve just completed the Stanley one, located it next to Pensby and that was done through funding claiming for that purpose. Because of the national circumstances the funding was withdrawn in July 2010. There’s no prospect realistically of funding on that scale now.

We have £21.5 million worth of funding capital in 2010/11. Next year we’ll have £4.1 million so we know we’re facing a different landscape. So what we want to do is go back and invest in the schools that we know now that we’ll not be rebuilding and that’s where that deal comes from, it has its origins there.

In terms of bidding for the money, we’ve had that, we’ve been looking for that for a while. Yes when we bid internally for the money against our colleagues we did also make a reference to the fact that should a decision be taken to close Lyndale clearly we will need places at other schools but the Elleray Park building work is not dependent on any decision you make about Lyndale. The scheme at Elleray Park will be done for suitability reasons and flexibility reasons whatever the decision about Lyndale. So it is not dependant in any shape or form on a proposition about Lyndale.

It actually begins to sort out things again that I did in the mid 1990s, as a short-term measure. I converted the former caretaker’s house to teaching accommodation. I never intended that it would last the length of time that it did. The scheme deals with that issue.

It moves the kitchen from the back of the school to the front which makes sense in terms of deliveries, so it does deal with issues with the school that exist. In all schools we try and respond to parental choice. We provide extra accommodation where we can when people are clearly wanting to go to that school. That’s national policy and it’s something we’ve tried to do.

In terms of the site, the idea that we can somehow just sell the site and pocket the money is actually a bit, well it’s very far fetched. If the decision was taken to close Lyndale there’d be a stepped process. For me, if a decision was taken to close the school, that doesn’t automatically mean that it would mean there would be no education on the site.

The school could convert to a free school, it could convert to an academy. It could be a shared, split site school with another school and the site would carry on being used much as it is now.

If that didn’t happen, I’d want to look to see what other purposes we could put to it for children because it’s had investment as I say it had an investment in 1999 a substantial one. It’s one of only four schools we’ve got with pools and you’d want to explore other possibilities.

It has a youth hub and a youth club on the corner of the site so there’d be lots of other possibilities. If it came to the fact there was no school and no other use for it, we have to then apply to the Secretary of State. We have to get his permission to dispose of the site.

We have to do it under two pieces of legislation, one is section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act which covers the playing fields and the playing field is not just a pitch it’s any outside space and we have to do it under section 1 of the Academies Act for the rest of the site and the Secretary of State’s words are that “a presumption is against you” on this issue. So even if we went through all those processes and the Secretary of State did give permission to dispose of the site it could then be disposed of but that condition would be based on us having specific schemes where the funding would have to be reinvested in other schools.

So I think it’s useful to set all that out to show, it is a process we’ve gone through. We’ve relocated schools to school sites when schools have closed. We have disposed of sites but the money goes reinvested back into schools.

So there’s absolutely no motive on me and anybody else to address this as a capital or an asset issue. That comes at the end and I hope by going through that and it’s a legal process, it’s a national process that shows that really the debate needs to be had about the needs of the children not about the site.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
Go on, you’ve got one more question Leah.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
No, you said I could have four, no, but we’ve got plenty of time! But errm right,

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
No sorry, I’ll let you put the question if you like.

COUNCILLOR LEAH FRASER
Thank you Chair. My next question is, the email that Rochelle Smith mentioned, which I’m sure you were waiting for me to ask or somebody to ask that. From Paul Ashton “no plans for closure” sent in April 2012. What happened between April 2012 to a couple of months ago last year? That seems quite a change of policy, can you explain that?

DAVID ARMSTRONG
I think we’d like to. The letter came in when I was covering the Director of Childrens Services post, which we… Julia agreed upon to. So I was wearing two hats when that letter came in. I was covering the Director’s post but I was also still working with Andrew doing the finances. The letter was read in that context.

I asked Paul Ashcroft to reply to the letter because he was the specialist special, he was the senior inspector for special education, but I also had a discussion with him because if I sit there wearing the hat doing the thing with Andrew the very last thing we would want is for any member of our team, to be suggesting that children shouldn’t go to the school. It’s the very last thing we would want, it would make an already difficult situation even worse.

He went away, he replied to the letter, he replied to the parent and I also asked him to research whether he could come across any evidence of where our staff were directing children away from the school and that’s the most current and it’s interesting, it’s been really good to listen to what’s been said tonight because the references to me appear to have been mainly, if not exclusively to staff who work for another organisation and I think that’s an issue that Julia will research in her own way.

The situation is as I described at the very beginning, the national framework has now embedded itself in. Andrew and I are looking to the future landscape, we can see more hurdles that we’ll have to go through, other agencies will have to be involved in saying yes or no to the current arrangement we have with funding empty places, we see a clear direction now in special which is to move towards paying for the pupil rather than the place so it’s because, unbeknownst to us at the beginning of this, it’s that national context and also the numbers haven’t added, the numbers have stayed broadly stable and that clearly makes the problem difficult.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, next I’m going to deal with Paul, Pat and Adam in that order.

COUNCILLOR PAUL DOUGHTY
I am at an advantage actually over some of the parents and members of the audience because I know you as individuals and I know as individuals how passionate you are about children and your responsibilities towards them and our parents and members of the audience here don’t know that and they don’t have the advantage that myself and some of the other councillors have.

I think one of the problems we’ve got is the language that’s been used in some of the communication, perhaps in the newspapers and their responsibility for that. Also perhaps the, we referred to you that know some of the perhaps careless language of NHS staff perhaps and so we have a challenge really as a local authority as to how we can reverse that negative view that parents have so the question is given some of the comments that have been made to us where parents have a lack of confidence in the process and the consultation is there anything else that you feel that as officers we can do to try and restore confidence in the consultation process that haven’t already been presented tonight?

JULIA HASSALL
OK Chair, if I start the answer to that. One of the things that we’re deeply committed to doing should the decision be to proceed with the consultation is to talk with parents and each child, talk with the school and really make sure we’ve got as up to date assessment of the needs of each individual child at Lyndale School.

So that as we go forward, we are very genuinely looking at options in the knowledge of each individual child so that when we apply what’s called the SEN Improvement Test, we’re doing it based on our understanding of what each individual child needs and looking at how their needs can and if they can be met in a different setting.

So it’s making sure amidst what you say Councillor, a lot of the language that’s been used that we pull it back to first principle and say this is about getting it right for some exceptionally vulnerable children and how to care deeply about their children and we’ll need to be absolutely reassured whether the child is going to school they have staff in that school who can absolutely respond to their children’s needs in a very caring appropriate way and that is the very heart of what we must do as we take this forward.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, Pat and then Adam and then Leah and that… and I do want to spread it round the committee, all ok?

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
I’ll try and keep my questions to the question of debating whether we should have a call in on, oh a consultation. One of the parent witnesses Julia has said earlier that she had or that parents had forwarded questions to you and not received replies. My question to you is, have you been waiting to reply to these queries on the fact that the parents have raised objections to the proposed current consultation? I’ve got one more question.

JULIA HASSALL
Thank you Councillor, I’m glad you asked me that question. I met with staff at the school and with parents on the 19th of December. It was the soonest date we could arrange after I met with the governing body at Lyndale School and I brought with me a colleague who took very detailed notes at the meeting.

Quite soon after Christmas, there were very detailed questions and did need to canvass a number of views to get accurate responses and Mrs Dawn Hughes who was a parent who spoke at the Cabinet meeting, I think Dawn is here this evening, on the 16th January very helpfully wrote to me saying this is a summary of the questions we asked and here are some additional questions and she did that under the freedom of information process and what I did I was a little delayed, but I did respond to Mrs Hughes within the freedom of information timescale which is about three weeks or so ago.

I’m probably mistaken because I understood that those questions and responses would be circulated to other parents. If that’s not happened I will do that tomorrow.

(heckling) The answers given they weren’t answers.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
One other question Chair.

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
Another witness referred to the fact that the closure of Lyndale School has been brought to their attention by members of staff from another organisation. Have you had any contact yourself with the NHS about Lyndale School and the staff that were mentioned?

JULIA HASSALL
Councillor Glasman, I’ve been slightly chary about going very broad on consultation at this point, but I I I have indirectly made contact with Doctor Steiger but I will want to if the consultation proceeds, certainly meet with a group of community pediatricians to elicit their views and meet with other health professionals who are involved and I know that there are some who are actually directly working within the Lyndale School and I want to very much take soundings from them and from any other professional who’s directly involved.

COUNCILLOR PATRICIA GLASMAN
You want to emphasise to them that (inaudible)

COUNCILLOR STEVE FOULKES
OK, Adam.

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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 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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Incredible: Lyndale School call in causes second constitutional crisis for Wirral Council!

Incredible: Lyndale School call in causes second constitutional crisis for Wirral Council!

Incredible: Lyndale School call in causes second constitutional crisis for Wirral Council!

                            

Labour's Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) explains at a Wirral Council Cabinet meeting why he thinks the Cabinet should agree to consultation on closure of Lyndale School
Labour’s Cllr Tony Smith (Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services) explaining at a Wirral Council Cabinet meeting why he thinks the Cabinet should agree to consultation on closure of Lyndale School

This is a rather complicated saga, so it’s best to go back to the beginning and have a recap of what’s happened so far in chronological order. Way back on the 16th January despite an emotional plea from a parent, the Labour Cabinet decided to consult on closing Lyndale School. At the same meeting the same Cabinet also decided to agree to change how they divide up funding for pupils at special schools (which has an effect on Lyndale School).

On the 20th January I wrote a blog post headlined “Was the Wirral Council Cabinet decision to consult on closing Lyndale School lawful?” which included two polls. The first poll asked readers if they thought the decision was lawful (so far 92.31% think it wasn’t and 7.69% that it was) as well as a second poll on whether the decision should be called in (75% voted yes, 25% voted no).

The two decisions were then called in by councillors. The decision to consult on closing Lyndale was called in by Cllr Tom Harney, Cllr Phil Gilchrist, Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Ian Lewis, Cllr Cherry Povall and Cllr Pat Williams. The decision on allocating funding (called proposals for change to school top up payments for students with high needs) was also called in by the same six councillors.

A meeting of the Coordinating Committee was arranged to consider the call in which prompted a blog post titled Is the Lyndale School call in going to the wrong Wirral Council Committee? along with another poll that asked whether it should be decided by the Coordinating Committee or the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee along with another poll in which 100% voted that it should be decided by the Families and Wellbeing Policy and Performance Committee.

I wrote a further blog post on the 4th February headlined The Reasons why Wirral Council’s Lyndale School call in is being delayed. Councillors on the Coordinating Committee met on the 5th February (covered in “When is a call in meeting not a call in meeting? When it’s adjourned…”) and agreed a recommendation to adjourn the call in meeting to the 27th February until after the Council meeting on the 25th so that Council could co-opt the necessary parent governor representatives and Diocesan body representatives onto the Coordinating Committee.

At this point it’s worth pointing out what it states in Wirral Council’s constitution on call ins (it’s at 35 (3)(b) (page 138) if you wish to check this out for yourself) “(b) The relevant Chief Officer and all members will be notified of a call-in immediately and no action will be taken to implement the decision until the call-in procedure has been completed. A decision of the Cabinet, a committee of the Cabinet or individual Cabinet member may be called in only once.”

I’ve added some underlining to emphasise the bit “no action will be taken to implement the decision until the call-in procedure has been completed”.

However agenda item seven for tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting has an agenda item “Schools Budget 2014/15”, which is officer’s recommendation to Cabinet for the schools budget which will then be recommended to Budget Council on the 25th February.

At 4.3.5 of the report to Cabinet it states the following:

4.3.5 High Needs Block

The make up of this block is complex. It is based on the “place plus” system introduced by the DfE [Department for Education] from April 2013 and includes:

  • Special schools (pre and post 16), school bases and independent non-maintained special schools. All receive a base level funding of £10,000 per place following agreement of place numbers with the Education Funding Agency (EFA).
  • Alternative Provision Bases and WASP. This provision is funded at £8,000 per place.
  • Additional funding over and above that provided for places will be paid in the form of “top ups”. These will be provided on a per pupil basis. The top up, or “plus” element of funding, is based on the agreed assessed needs of pupils and is paid by the “commissioner” responsible; this may be Wirral Children’s Services, a school or another Local Authority. In 2014/15 it is anticipated that a new banded top up system (with 5 bands) will be introduced and will be used to allocate funding to special schools, resourced based and alternative provision.
  • The costs of all education and training for post 16 specialist and LLDD provision (top ups) to colleges and private providers.
  • The Hospital Schools budget

Compare the above to the report titled Proposals for Changes to School Top Up Payments for Students with High Needs which went to be decided by Cabinet on the 16th January, resulted in Cabinet agreeing the proposals and was then called in (quoted below).

2.2 “with each school receiving an amount of £10,000 per place and an additional top up based on individual pupil needs.”

2.4 “Top Up funding (ie the “Plus” element) reflects the additional support costs in excess of place funding for individual pupils and students and takes into account factors such as the pupils individual needs and facilities / support provided.”

“This is a significant piece of work that has been undertaken with Wirral’s Schools Forum’s SEN Finance Steering Group, the outcome of which has resulted in a banded approach to top ups for:”
…
“Students in post 16 provision with element three costs; Further Education Colleges, Sixth Forms and Independent Specialist Providers (ISP);

Basically the proposals mean the same (but written with slightly different words). If these recommendations from officers on the Schools Budget for 2014/15 are agreed by Cabinet, it will become recommendations to Budget Council on the 25th February (and recommendations to Council can’t be called in). If that’s the case then the call in decision by the Coordinating Committee on the 27th February on the top up payments for students with high needs becomes a fait accompli as the decision on the Schools Budget for 2014/15 will have been made already by Council on the 25th February.

I pointed this out by email to the Cabinet Member (Cllr Tony Smith), Cllr Phil Davies (who chairs Cabinet meetings), the Chair and spokespersons on the Coordinating Committee, the councillors who called in the decisions, Surjit Tour (Wirral Council’s Monitoring Officer), Graham Burgess (Chief Executive who has a role in the call in process) and Andrew Roberts (the officer who wrote the report to Cabinet) which outlined what had happened and contained the following four questions.

I know there is a reserve Budget meeting set aside for the 4th March. Therefore my questions are:

1) Would it not be better to consider the schools budget on the 4th March as by this time the decisions reached by the call in meeting on the 27th February will be known?

2) Bearing in mind the constitutional requirement that “no action will be taken to implement the decision until the call-in procedure has been completed” can either the Cabinet on Wednesday recommend a schools budget (when an element of that budget being proposed has been called in) or Council on the 25th February decide on a schools budget (for the same reasons) without being accused of making a decision in breach of Wirral’s constitution?

3) If the schools budget is to be decided on the 4th March, will an extra Cabinet meeting be required between the 27th February and the 4th March to consider any recommendations arising from the call in
meeting?

and

4) In order for these decisions to be made according to Wirral Council’s constitution does this require the budget council procedure (agreed by Cabinet on the 16th January) to be altered so that the
schools budget is dealt with as a separate matter to the rest of the Budget?

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I look forward to either hearing a response to these questions at Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting or receiving a formal response by email before then.

So far I’ve received responses from two councillors. One just stated “Thank you for the information”, the reply from the other councillor stated that they’d follow up my query with the report author Andrew Roberts.

So what’s really going on? The line written in the report “In 2014/15 it is anticipated that a new banded top up system (with 5 bands) will be introduced and will be used to allocate funding to special schools, resourced based and alternative provision.” makes it sound like the outcome of the call in is being predicted by an officer before it’s even taken place! So what’s really going on? Does anybody really know or is this just the uniquely strange and peculiar way that Wirral Council makes decisions?

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