Wroughton Primary Federation Finance & Premises Committee Meeting Minutes

Wroughton Primary Federation Finance & Premises Committee Meeting Minutes Date 4 th May 2016 Time 5.30pm Meeting No 03-16 Meeting attendees Guests Apologies Any queries contact: Tracey Owen (TO) Clerk, Sarah Vodden (SV), John Brodie (JB), Jan Sayers (JS), Nicola Fitchett (NF) Andrew Moreton (AWM),Sandra Parsons (SP), Paul Gibbs (PG), Andy Marsden (AM), Garry Porter (GP) Heads from both schools Sarah Wilson (SW) & Cheryl Boulton (CB) Penny Glover (PGl) Gemma Leigh (GL) None Tracey Owen traceyowen63@sky.com ITEM NO TOPIC ACTION 1. Welcome, apologies and Declarations of Interest 1.1 There were no apologies received. 1.2 There were no declarations of interest on this meeting s agenda. 2. Approval of the minutes from meeting March 23 rd 2016 2.1 Minutes were previously circulated and were confirmed as an accurate and true record of the meeting held. 3. Matters arising 3.1 Combined Federation website clerk to carry forward action 5.1 to April meeting TG confirmed that one quote has been received and awaiting 2 others then the recommendation will go to FGB. 3.2 Scheme of Delegation and terms of reference to be re-written GP to formulate TG confirmed that she has spoken with GP and work is in progress. 3.3 GL to check if the Infants have a staff counselling service either stand alone or within Supply Insurance by 26/4 meeting. GL confirmed that there is a service included within the Supply Insurance, however since the meeting in March; the school has received a renewal quotation of 14k which is significantly higher than the premium of 7k last year. GL & TG advised the Committee that as this increase would put a significant strain on the budget and costs were unlikely to exceed the premium quoted, it did not appear to be financially viable to continue the insurance this year. Governors were asked if they would agree to reverse their decision not to renew the Supply Insurance based on the renewal cost and recommendations. All agreed that this decision should be reversed with immediate effect. 4. Update on the progress of the Scheme of delegation and Terms of Reference 1

4.1 Please see 3.2 above. 5. Finance & Business 5.1 Discuss School Funding and budgetary implications GL and PGl set out to produce two draft budgets that realistically reflected the current financial position of each school with neither school subsidising the other. All budgets prepared for this meeting still have small changes that need to be put through including potential TLR changes. The Infant budget had a large deficit in the third year and TG, GL and PGl met to see how they could begin to claw back some of the shortfall. We will look at each base budget first and then the problem solving budgets Rollover Junior School 101317 Revenue 81878 which includes 11500 rolled over for fire steps. Capital 19438 earmarked for projects bungalow wall, library roof, Tranquillity zone door and re-routing of pipework and reserve for repairs to pipe work in case there are any more leaks. Infant School 61,237 Revenue 46,391 plus 1342 which is the remaining Sports Grant funding. Capital 13,504 earmarked to contribute towards the Hall Boiler. Q: What has happened with the costs of the School lunches in the Infants? A: We need to encourage more children to take up a school lunch on Census day as the average is 206 meals per day. In order to encourage meal uptake it is anticipated that we can arrange a themed/dressing up day. The contract is not up for renewal in the immediate future but will continue to be monitored. Update on School meal provision and uptake Wroughton Junior School (base budget) With all costs shared across both schools the third year shows a rollover carried forward of 21760. However in year 1 Juniors have a large rollover which if reduced to meet the guidelines of SBC will put us into deficit in the third year. In addition, in each year of the three year budget our outgoings are more than our income. Whilst in the first year this is just a difference of 3366 by the third year it has increased to 63509. On the plus side however only 17,000 of the income from the nursery has been included. The contract is due for renewal in October and if the contract is renewed (which based on the amount that the nursery has spent on the building and on the grounds this year it seems likely) and if the school continues to receive the income and SBC do not step in and take this money, the position is not as bad. In addition in years 2 and 3 we have not included income from exceptional needs for children joining the school again because of the uncertainty but on the assumption that the funding for these children will continue at the same level and these children will move up through our school this will generate an additional income of 9450 in year 2 and 19350 in year 3. The clawback from SBC for high level special needs, which was indicated, would be for one year only has actually been put across all three years. It is probably unlikely that we will receive more in the budget next year but not impossible. The national formula for budgets should impact positively on Swindon Schools budgets. The budget assumes an increase in school meals in September and takes into account three retirements that are anticipated will happen and the staff who replaces these will be on lower paid contracts. Infant School Base budget Overall the latest budget for the Infant School looks a lot worse than previous forecasts. Schools were under pressure to submit a balanced budget last year, and 2

previous budget forecasts included the impact of some assumed actions to be taken in future years to balance the budget. Schools were under pressure to submit a balanced budget last year. Consequently there was a line in the previous budget for redundancies of TAs which contributed to the + 61,000 in third year. Teaching costs are different by 20000 in the three year budget and SIMS which over 4 years could account for 80K, there is a lower rollover than predicted. Supply sickness was high last year and although GL has decreased this figure this year, it is still higher than budgeted for in previous budgets therefore impacting negatively on year 3. Pupil projection is 90 and then estimated at 87 per year thereafter. Three years of high level special needs claw back has now been allowed for, as per the Junior School budget. The shared cost of the business manager which Ian Burbridge said that the infant school could not afford has been put back against the Infants school to get the true picture and this would account for another 50K over the three years. Supply cover insurance has not been included in this budget scenario. Q: Base budget has significant differences with this year s actual? Teachers pay etc. A: Last October was based on the budget without all the teaching costs within it. There was a difference because the budget templates do not appear to be accurate based on the templates and have had to be built in. This will also include JS under a different cost code for SENCO costs, not a teaching cost. These are the most accurate costs we can provide and the LA will not accept the level of minus that has been predicted. Utilities at present are based on the last 5 years expenditure and are an educated guess. 5.2 Budget problem solving Junior School problem solving budget Two main changes to the budget No contribution to Sally s salary saving 27605, 28931 and 29231 each year Additional income from WIS for JB (IT Tech) services one day a week 2750, 4714 and 4714 This will enable the Junior School to increase allocations to certain cost centres including IT equipment and potentially office staff. Infant School problem solving budget PGl has spoken with Andy from FS4S reference the proposed budgets and his comments are: It s still a tight budget even with these changes. In Year 3 the Infant budget is overspending by nearly 25K. He asks are there any thoughts on how this can be recovered and suggests really looking at the need to replace staff. TG has identified a possible redundancy which will make a saving of 90k over the 3 year period details are below. Amendments to the Leadership budget line has been due to reflection in proposed staffing changes (see below). The Sports company is no longer affordable; however we can use a Sports Specialist from the Juniors to provide good standards of sports lessons. 3

5.3 Staffing restructure recommendations Operational Head Teacher vacancy - Infants Following the resignation of Op Head for Infants, TG asked governors to consider whether we will replace this post. A discussion took place regarding the role and it was suggested that we will replace the role of Operational Head. If the existing AHT successfully applies for the role it was agreed that due to budget constraints the AHT post would not be replaced. It was also agreed that the Operational Head role would involve teaching in class 2 days per week. Year group leaders Inconsistency with Year group leaders across both schools we need make roles meatier and give more accountability. Job Description will include data, work sampling Year group leaders in Juniors and strengthen leadership across both schools. Pay to reflect for accountability need to give opportunities to teachers and retain them for ambition and progression. Year group leader roles for 2k TLR, 3,4,5,6 Problem solving budgets take into account all the changes except for TLRs although budgets are not the final draft. We believe the bottom line will be better. Governors agreed to request. 5.4 Redundancies There will be no redundancies. 5.5 End of Contracts All the fixed term contracts agreed at our last meeting have been ended. 5.6 End of Service Agreements Ridgeway School providing Modern Foreign languages (MFL). This will now be done in-house using a TA who has knowledge of languages at no extra cost to the school. 5.7 Federation Shared services The Consortium have given us 5% discount. Parago unable to have one contract across both schools but have given us 10% discount amounting to 70 per school. Cleaning company rejigged the charges making savings of 300. E Teach shared between the two schools generates a saving of 350 per school. Governor Support 700 saving each school. 5.8 Recruitment implications TG advised that there is a high level of job shares in the Teaching staff and this cannot be sustained as there are teaching implications for the pupils as well as a cost implication to the school budget. If any further requests are made for parttime job shares we will have to look at the needs of the school. CB advised that this has been discussed in the past at the Infant School governing body meetings. All agreed that no further job-share requests needed discussion. 6. Combined Federation website As above: Quotations are currently being obtained for FGB to make decision 4 FGB to decide

on Federation website when quotes received. 7. Premises update 7.1 Junior School Boiler is now up and running. However concerns over the likelihood of more water leaks due to the increased pressure from the new boiler. 5K in budget to help. Fire steps will be started shortly. 7.2 Infant School It has become apparent that due to the operating system of Windows XP in the school we are unable to teach coding to pupils which is a requirement. We need to upgrade the school system and the cost of this wish list will be 7-14k. Staff cannot open attachments either from emails which is not practical. Need to cut staffing costs to resource the school. Costs are currently being obtained by the IT Technician to make these improvements. Governors agreed that the upgrade will be necessary and await costs. Condition planning survey done we will need to take forward and finally have a clean sheet to work from. Site survey that was carried out and to get school fit for purpose will need 200-300k investment and TG has shared concerns with Peter Nathan, the Borough needs to look at investing some money as the Portacabins are not fit for purpose. TG will be meeting with Peter Nathan to discuss this further as the Borough are the Landlords of the premises. Subsidence CCTV survey is required. PAT testing been done. Windows upgrade replacement costings to be agreed for Infants and implemented TG to update on meeting with Peter Nathan re: Infant buildings 8. Clerks Salaries 8.1 This will be carried forward to S & C meeting 9. 9.1 9.2 Policies Pay Policy The pay policy must be agreed before September and then to Unions and presented at the staff meeting then to Governors this policy will be approved in staffing meeting. Code of Conduct policy for staff This will be reviewed at the next meeting. Code of Conduct policy agenda item next meeting 10. HLTA and TA overtime 10.1 Payments are not consistent at both schools and will be reviewed to ensure that there is transparency in both. TG to update on 5

consistency of overtime payments to staff 11. School Business Manager role 11.1 TG advised that with current budget constraints it is not sustainable to employ 2 School Business Managers (SBM s) across the Federation. With PGl s departure it would be more affordable to streamline the administration to employ a Finance Officer to support the SBM. TG has contacted HR and a job description has been obtained employing on grade L. The vacancy will be advertised immediately with a start date to be determined as June and will be based in the Infants. This means that the SBM role would also need to be advertised and it was agreed that this would become an internal vacancy on a salary determined at a slightly lower scale and it is hoped that GL will apply. The SBM will mainly be based in the Junior School. If GL is the successful candidate it is hoped that her hours can become FT from September. Governors agreed to the suggestions and to recruit ASAP. NOTE: All governors agreed to the changes above and it was noted that the process of decision making is normally for the Committee to make recommendation to the FGB, however the Chairs of Governors SP & PG agreed that executive action has had to be taken on behalf of the whole FGB as these decisions are urgent, have significant impact and needed immediate agreement to implement. Date of next meeting: Wednesday 8 th June 5.30pm at Infant School Meeting finished at 6.22pm Summary of Actions Update on School meal provision and uptake TG to update on redundancy situation following meeting with member of staff FGB to decide on Federation website when quotes received. Windows upgrade replacement costings to be agreed for Infants and implemented GL next meeting TG next meeting Agenda item FGB when all quotes received TG to update on progress next meeting TG to update on meeting with Peter Nathan re: Infant buildings TG to update next meeting Code of Conduct policy agenda item next meeting TG to update on consistency of overtime payments to staff Clerk to add to F & P agenda 8/6/16 TG to update next meeting 6

Minutes accepted and approved (Chair) (Date) 7