Loading
Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee. Scrutiny committees question decisions and can recommend changes. They don't make the decision.
Impact of budget cuts on schools
The committee acknowledged the difficult budget position facing schools and thanked officers, schools and governing bodies for their work. It agreed to keep inviting school representatives to budget discussions, and to hold an All Member workshop in September on education placements in and out of county. It asked that the October budget report include licensed deficits (agreed overspends a school may carry for a set time) and changes to that scheme, redundancies, the impact on class sizes, changes in admission numbers, plans to meet demand for ALN (additional learning needs) provision, and any remodelling of ALN provision under the Change Programme. The Lead Member agreed to take forward a request that a member of this committee sit on the Executive Board School Transport Task and Finish Group, a short-term group set up for a specific task.
Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee. Scrutiny committees question decisions and can recommend changes. They don't make the decision.
Impact of budget cuts on schools
The committee thanked the Lead Member and officers for the report. It will keep monitoring the impact of budget cuts on schools and will consider a further report in May 2025.
Lifelong Learning Scrutiny Committee. Scrutiny committees question decisions and can recommend changes. They don't make the decision.
Impact of budget cuts to schools
Members agreed that future reports on this matter should include teacher-to-pupil ratio information. They asked for an information report on school closing balances to be shared. They asked the Executive Board to specify the total value and cost of the three-year licensed deficit realistically and to meet it fully from Council funds. The committee noted its support for not charging interest on licensed deficits. The Chair and Vice-Chair will review a topic request form on agency staff in schools for possible inclusion in the 2025-26 work programme.
Items are linked when their titles share most of their words and they fall within 18 months of each other. Councils don't number reports across meetings, so a few links may be wrong, and a step may be missing if its title changed a lot. Each step links to the meeting, where the council's own papers are.