Agenda item

To receive a report to inform members of the Schools Forum of the results of firstly, the 2009 Audit Commission School Survey and secondly, the Services to Schools Survey 2009, and to seek any comments

Sue Curbishley, Senior Performance Analyst, introduced the report on the Audit Commission School Survey and Services to Schools Survey, which had been circulated. She told the meeting that the surveys looked at perceptions of the Council and partnership services to schools. The data on the Audit Commission School Survey were unfortunately not comparable with the previous year’s data as the Audit Commission had changed the scale from five ratings to four. Bracknell Forest was in the highest quartile for 47 out of 63 questions. For the “Stay Safe” question, Bracknell Forest received the highest rating in England. Overall there were no causes for concern.

The online survey about the 28 services to schools available from the Council had been run in Summer 2009, and it was planned to repeat this every three years in the future. Again, views of schools indicated a high degree of satisfaction on the services provided.

The Chief Officer: Performance and Resources told the meeting that the surveys presented positive and pleasing views of Bracknell Forest, but that there was work to be done.

The Chairman thanked Ms Curbishley, and asked for questions. Mr Reading asked about question 2.2 – safeguarding and was told that there had been an issue, but this had been dealt with satisfactorily by the Local Safeguarding Children Board. There had been a perceived lack of direction regarding safeguarding when the new Ofsted had been put in place, but this had now been clarified.

Ed Glasson thanked Ms Curbishley for her report, and agreed that this was very good news. He told the Forum that the change in scale was frustrating, but that the new scale made sense. He commented on the standard deviation, which was very high in places, and queried the response to 5.4, suggesting that this might be because of a lack of data. He also asked about school meals, and was told that the response in the report was about a perception of school meals, and not all schools were using Caterhouse. When asked when there were better school meals providers, Ms Curbishley told the Forum that Caterhouse worked hard to encourage the take up of school meals.

In response to a question about the level of response to the survey, Ms Curbishley told the Forum that just under half had responded. Additional data is appended to these minutes.

The Chairman summed up by saying that whichever way the survey measured Bracknell Forest Council, it was doing very well according to the Audit Commission.

The Forum AGREED:

1. That the Schools Forum NOTED the summary results from both the 2009 Audit Commission School Survey and the ‘Services to Schools 2009 Survey’;

2. That the Schools Forum NOTED that, as indicated last year, the 2009 Audit Commission School Survey had changed considerably. Most notably the rating scale had been reversed and now reflected Ofsted ratings as follows:

                                                               i.      Excellent (4)

                                                             ii.      Good (3)

                                                            iii.      Adequate (2)

                                                           iv.      Poor (1)

3. The Forum NOTED that the 2009 survey was shorter and now reflected ‘local services’ in addition to specific council services. In 2009 no questions were included about our buyback services in the Audit Commission Survey but conducted a separate online survey of all ‘Services to Schools’ in-house.