Transcript

let's let's let's crack on with business so are we have we got a live link now we have good evening everybody people that may be following us online I'm Councillor you had would some leader the council and chairman of cabinets they're being members of the public present in the meeting we were dispensed with the normal health and safety notices but I would ask colleagues to remember to have their phone turned silent and this is to advise those following us on YouTube that the meeting is is into two parts the part one and a part two we will break between part one and part two which are the private and confidential matters and we will be breaking the YouTube link at that point if I may tell you to agenda item one apologies for absent thank you apologies from Councillor the library camp thank you item two declarations of interest in matters before the meeting any additional interests none indicated thank you to approve the minutes of the meet last cabinet meeting those minutes are on pages one to twenty two are they agreed thank you item four that is to confirm there are items that businesses in both part one and part two and as I say we will break the meeting between those two parts we'll now move on to a gender item five the substantive agenda items and that is the Annual Education Standards Report Council Susan O'Brien thank you leader I'd like to as you suggested propose agenda item five which is the Annual Education Standards Report for 22/2023 so just to be mindful that this is reported is generally it's for noting because it is a year behind and with the outcomes now so the Annual Report focuses primarily on attainment progress and achievement outcomes for the previous academic year indicating how our education system in the borough is performing this report once again signifies the legacy issues the educational establishments are working with following COVID-19 and although they have responded positively and with resilience they are still working through the issues of low attendance higher persistent absence speech and communication delays in younger children and continued challenges around SEMH which is social emotional and mental health across all educational settings and in as well as the early year settings offset of caught up with their backlog of inspections and hillington remains in line with national outcomes I can tell you that 92% of hillington schools during that time were judged as good or outstanding the recommendation there is only one which is on page 23 of the cabinet paper and is to note the key findings of the Annual Education Standards Report I therefore move thank you thank you general item six the counter fraud corporate related investigative policies in councilor got our absence I will introduce this this is a suite of policies that shape the way that we investigate matters of fraud money laundering and other criminal matters they they stand on their own but provide transparency to the public of how we go about these areas of business and also provides a framework for the council and council offices what it doesn't disclose is the success that this team has and the product recently in returning and recovering very substantial sums of money and assets for example they've recently been recognized nationally for their achievements I am told that they have uncovered fraud within the homelessness where tenants had not taken up the allocated temporary accommodation but we had been paying the bill as claimed by the landlord we've recovered more than 100 properties council tenants have been subletting so all in all these these guys are punching well above their weight and delivering fantastic outcomes for the council and more importantly failing the residents these four policies just explain how they do business what shapes them but most relevance I think to the typical resident will be how it impacts on our use of CCTV and the considerations we have to make before we can employ that as an investigative method are the policies agreed thank you gender I some seven the score organization plan counselor Brian once again leader and so we have agenda item 7 the school organization plan this report provides cabinet with an overview of the educational landscape and in hillington provides a summary of current and projected pupil demand in primary secondary and individual school settings and the data for the council plan for the council to plan for future schools for within borough the council is an educational authority and therefore must manage school places and the fine balance of sufficiency versus surplus this document sets out the place projections over the next seven years to ensure that we are managing our schools properly over the past decade we have had to build or increase the size of capacity of our schools and as the trend is now in decline we are looking at how we can manage capacity by creating either bulge places in schools or repurposing the available spaces due to the falling school role by 2026 we will have reduced pan by 18 forms of entry in the primary school sector and we need to ensure that it is ready for and if we do have a next wave of increased birth rate and what's also powered is the growth in children who attend special schools or who requires special educational need school placement steadily since 2014 sorry 2014 you would have it you would have heard me pose a number of projects the cabinet regarding the building of extra capacity of special education needs places in Barra to accommodate the rise in this area many of these places are in our mainstream schools and we have created a number of specialist resource provisions and designated units that are now available and 71 children currently are benefiting from these places this year only this year this report highlights a number of areas whereby our schools will change and have to change and to become flexible within the educational landscape we have already seen since 2010 a number of schools convert to academy status some either single academies or more are entering into larger multi-cademy trusts or creating maps within the Barra themselves others are using looser agreements as well as having to consider collaboration of sorts whether it's a feather refrigerated governance model or amalgamating infants and junior schools into all through primary this is a really useful and important document and also a live document so this will be updated it provides granular quite granular data and really quite an interesting report the recommendations are on page 100 and the secrecy of the cabinet paper and that is to agree that agree this school organization plan and for publication today and also to agree the school organization plan being updated and presented to the cabinet portfolio member relevant select committee and schools annually with the latest data and forecasts I therefore move thank you very much could I ask the chief executives they're just particularly take back the thanks to the director of education and send no impressment for this report it we receive many many reports in the course of our business and this one has stood out as a very strong informative useful report and Abby should be thanked and congratulated on it colleagues the report agreed thank you gender item 8 the monthly council budget monitoring port month 11 in council got our absence I will read into record the report that he has submitted he stays this report which is set up at pages 217 to 242 of the pack deals with the council's projected results for the financial year to the 31st of March 2024 as they stood at the 29th of February 2024 that is month 11 of the financial year the general fund revenue account continues to indicate a small underspend of 2,000 pounds against the budget this is consistent with the reported position of month 10 council got out as previously reported existence of additional cost pressures amounting to 3.6 million pounds which relate to the continued increases in demand from from homelessness looked after children and adults social care these projected additional cost will be absorbed within EMF reserves which are currently projected to amount to 10.1 million pounds at the 31st of March 2024 however a surplus on our collection fund of 4.1 million pounds has been identified and we will recognize the vast majority of the benefit in the year 2024 2025 this represents an improvement of 286,000 pounds on the position projected at month 10 in addition to the EMF reserves we also have unallocated general balances amounting to 26.8 million so in total we are continuing to project 37 million pounds of reserves at our disposal at the end of the the year 2023 2024 our existing program of savings for that year is unchanged from the previously reported and we will ultimately achieve our entire target of 22.8 million pounds the forecast for the general fund expenditure for the financial year has been updated and is now indicating an underspend of 38.4 million pounds with anticipated expenditure expected to amount to 912 million the vast majority of this expenditure the underspend is proposed to be refazed into next year the overall impact of inflation and ever- creasing demand for housing and social care continues to be a backdrop of stagnant central government funding and placing the general fund under pressure albeit then our financial position remains robust and sound the council is currently discussing with the Department of Education as to its ring-fence deficit position on the dedicated scores grant and whilst these discussions continue the DFE has suspended the safety valve agreement and the agreed payments June from the DFE amounting to 2.5 million pounds this has now caused the adverse movement in the dedicated small-schools grant which is now projected to stand at a deficit of 29 million pounds at the end of the year the housing revenue account continues to project a full year out turn which is identical to budget at this stage and the housing revenue account capital expenditure of the year remains projected at 84 million pounds which is an underspend against budgets of half a million pounds the vast majority of which will be refazed this next year I therefore move recommendation of the reports set out on page 218 recommendation 2 is detailed in part B at the report and is on pages 241 and 242 this comprises five financially orientated recommendations itemized A to E I draw attention to recommendation C the use of 10 million pounds general capacity contingency to fund the continued continued continuing project to create additional special educational needs within the borough the remaining recommendations all relate to the acceptancies of grants and our self-explanatory I also move those recommendations colleagues of a clarity that's recommendations in part one page two one eight and recommendations in part two in part B pages two four one two four two those recommendations agreed agree thank you agenda item nine is the public preview a report public preview of matters could be considered in private this is merely intended to enhance our transparency of those issues that must be discussed and decided in in confidence it is will give far fuller information that would than otherwise would have been available and the decision will also be published in due course that report noted thank you we're now going to part B to break the link thank you very much [BLANK_AUDIO]