Agenda item

Due to a number of changes within SBC, the draft Annual DSG Report had been circulated to members the day before this meeting. The Chair thanked Funmi Olagbaiye for all her work in completing the report. Due to late circulation, members agreed 5 minutes should be allowed to read the report.

9.15am: the meeting adjourned

9.20am: the meeting resumed

FunmiOlagbaiye took members through the key points in the report, explaining that the balance sheet showed an accumulated deficit of £18.6m of which £19.4m was the High Needs Block (HNB) of the DSG, based on the overspends and underspends in Schools Block and the HNB.

Schools Block: at the beginning of the year there had been a slight balance bought forward of £289,000 underspend to which the DSG Settlement of £138.9m had been added. £102m had been recouped to the academy and all £36.9m had been allocated out to schools. The small overspend was due to the actual Growth Fund paid out which would be corrected in 2021/22.

CSSB: it was notedthe small overspend was due to license costs being higher than anticipated. A transfer of £255,000 from HNB had been made to support in-house services. The Slough Growth Project had been restricted due to Covid, so there was a small underspend as well as an underspend on vacancy factors. Therefore, there would be a small carry forward into the next year in reserves of £29,000. 

Early Years:  the final settlement for the year had been £15.5m. The main areas of underspend had been due to growth and in-year issues mainly due to Covid. There had been less uptake of places for 3-4 year olds, resulting in a total underspend of £0.148m within maintained and £0.76m within primary with an increase in those eligible for Pupil Premium and deprivation, resulting in a small underspend.  However, private sector take up had increased by £1.2m. This amounted to a total carry forward underspend of £833,000 which would be adjusted by the DfE in July. 

High Needs Block (HNB):  it was noted that work was ongoing through the DSG Management Plan to address this area. There had been an overspend of £5.35m in HNB this year, which had increased the accumulated deficit to £19.4m.  In the previous year, £18.4m had been allocated from the DSG, with some funds transferred to the CSSB. This year the budget had been aligned to fund maintained schools, which had left approximately £3m for central support and out of borough places. There was an overspend of £2m on the independent sector, overspending on out of borough special schools accounting for £1.7m. 

The deficit was rising year on year and the finance team continued to work hard to bring it under control.  The Chair thanked Funmi Olagbaiye for all the work which was being undertaken.

Michael Jarrett explained that none of the savings proposed related to any aspects of the HNB because it was a needs-led service, and it was difficult to manage exact amounts of expenditure. In some measure the HNB had to be treated as a separate entity as the requirements of the child came first, to ensure a child was placed appropriately. Ongoing work was required to mitigate the pressures and bring the HNB in line with budget: if spend continued on the same trajectory, the projected overspend for 2024/25 was £43m.  It was added that vulnerable needs still had to be met despite SBC having been served the Section 114 Notice.

The meeting moved to agenda items 8 and 9: