Issue - meetings

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of 9 December 2021.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Forum on 9 December 2021 be approved as a correct record.

Arising from minute 212, Paul Clark had not had an update from Chris Taylor in relation to correcting and reissuing the information that had been shared with the Headteachers regarding the Local Plan.  Cheryl Eyre added that Chris Taylor was aware of this and would ensure that correct information was included in the strategic document presented to the Forum in March.

Action: Chris Taylor

The Chair asked if the Special Educational Needs (SEN) sufficiency document had been created.  Paul Clark confirmed it had and that it would be presented to the Forum in March as part of the Capital Strategy and the School Places Plan. 

The Chair expressed his surprise that there was to be no update on the High Needs Block (HNB) at this meeting as the Forum had asked for regular updates and nothing had been presented for a short while.  The Chair was further disappointed that there was no item on HNB funding for 2022/23 on this agenda as reports had been received on the Early Years Block Element of the Schools Budget (Item 4), the Schools Block and Central School Services Block Elements of the Schools Budget (Item 5), and the Local Authority Budget (Item 6).  This left the HNB funding update for the meeting in March, and the Forum had previously expressed concern about that as it presented the Forum with a “fait accompli”.  Debbie Smith seconded that view.

The Chair requested an update on the banding matrix.  Cheryl Eyre advised that Jenny Baker had presented the descriptors to the subgroup and then a demonstration had been presented to the SEN Service.  Descriptors were being looked at by Mandy Wimbush and Veronica McDonald (Learning Support and ASD teachers) and that piece of work was ongoing.  Once completed, the descriptors would be handed to Paul Clark to work on modelling the finance for each band and this would then go back to the subgroup.  Cheryl Eyre had proposed that the banding matrix be incorporated into each individual Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) review to ensure that the agreed banding matrix would be appropriate for each individual child, as opposed to transferring all the children at once to the new bands.  This was due to commence in March / April 2022 and the Headteachers had been fully updated on this.

The Chair asked for an update on the six project workstreams to address the HNB deficit budget that had been presented to the Forum at the meeting in November 2021.  Regarding the governance framework and process, Cheryl Eyre explained that two project managers were working on that; putting details on the database, testing the system, and proofing the system to highlight any gaps.  That piece of work was on track to finish by the end of March 2022 and the system would be ready to use at the beginning of April 2022.  Training would be required  ...  view the full minutes text for item 218