North East Hampshire Governors' Forum

Date Tuesday 20th May 2003

Time 7.30 - 9.30 pm

Location Wootey Infant School, Alton

Present	Beech Down Primary The Butts Primary Fernhill Primary Fleet Infant Great Binfields Primary Greenfields Junior Heatherside Infant Langrish Primary Liss Infant Oakley Infant Oakley Junior Oakridge Infant Parsonage Farm Infant Rowledge Primary St Bernadette's Primary St Mark's Primary (Farn) St Patrick's Primary St Peter's Junior, Yateley Silchester Primary South Farnborough Junior Tavistock Infant West End Infant Wootey Infant Wootey Junior	Mrs G Norris   Mrs M Crowe   Mr J Howell   Mrs D Stephenson   Mrs M Chiverton   Mrs J Kilroy   Mr P Neail   Mr M Parr   Mrs V Bush   Mrs B Hayes   Mr T Favell   Mrs J Haycocks, Mrs G Raper   Mr J Struthers   Dame Elizabeth Anson   Mr P Attridge, Mr G Dorey   Mrs F Milne   Mrs L O'Neill   Mr J Divall   Mr K Chapman   Mr S Wenham   Mr J Stocks   Mr J Coyle   Mr D Mackeggie   Mrs T Stevenson
Secondary	Bohunt Cove Cranbourne Eggars Oak Farm Robert May's	Mr J Duckham   Mrs K Legge   Mrs K May-Miller, Mr D Botton   Mrs M Crowe   Mr R Gray   Jane Pratt
Special	Maple Ridge Bushy Leaze	Mrs K Lawson   Mrs S Perks
In Attendance	Mrs Louise Brierley Mrs Hazel Round Mrs Janice Fenner	Strategic Schools Improvement Manager   Governor Services Co-ordinator   Administrative Officer, Governor Services
Apologies	All Saints Junior Belle Vue Infant Calthorpe Park The Connaught Great Binfields Long Sutton Richard Aldworth Samuel Cody Sheet Primary The Wavell Westfield Infant Yateley School	Mrs M Stocks   Mr S Curtis   Mr D Wimpenny   Mr F Rust   Mrs D Ballinger   Mr P Last   Mr T Curtis   Nigel Baines   Nigel Baines   Mr T Prentice   Mr G Ellicott

Action

1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND WELCOME

  Apologies as listed above. The chairman, Mrs Jane Pratt, welcomed everyone to the forum. She introduced Louise Brierley, Strategic School Improvement Manager, and Hazel Round, Governor Services Co-ordinator.

2 MINUTES

 The minutes of the meeting held on 28 January 2003 were confirmed as a true record of the meeting.

3 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

 There were no items that were not already on the agenda.

4 LOUISE BRIERLEY

 Louise explained that her role as Strategic School Improvement Manager was within HIAS. HIAS, Education Personnel and Governor Services were all situated within the Standards and Improvement Branch. All three groups worked very closely together. There were three SSIMs in the County. They each lead the team which monitors standards in schools, working with their School Improvement Managers and primary, secondary and subject inspectors. In the North East they cover about 180 schools. They work with schools in `inverse proportion to success'. Categorisation visits are made to schools in order to decide the level of support to be given.

Louise explained her background which had involved 20 years in teaching starting with middle school education in Berkshire. She moved into secondary education in Hampshire. She worked five and a half years as a Deputy Head in Winchester and joined Hampshire five years ago as a secondary phase inspector. She has experience of Ofsted both as a teacher and as an inspector.

Louise has tried to get round to visit schools and has managed 50 visits so far. She then gave an example of what her role involved in the past week. In response to a question Louise explained what constituted an effective school. The Hampshire definition looked at the school's output in terms of results and the progress made by pupils, also test results and the school's success in setting appropriately challenging targets and meeting them. The outcome of an Ofsted inspection if the school has had a recent inspection. Also, looking at the school's capacity for continuing to improve and to move forward.

Asked about the layers of bureaucracy and whether it was all worth it, Louise replied that schools now had self management and had control of their own budgets which they had not always had. When Louise had been a teacher there had been much more freedom. It was no longer like that and she felt that was an improvement.

The chairman thanked Louise for a very interesting presentation.

5 ROGER MEAD, ASSISTANT COUNTY EDUCATION OFFICER

 Funding and the Role of the Schools' Forum

Roger explained that last year as a consequence of national legislation the County Council replaced the previous education Committee with an Executive Member for Education supported by an Education Policy Review Committee. They also required LEAs to set up a Schools Forum. The Forum can only make recommendations, not decisions. The Schools Forum consists of volunteers nominated by the group each represents. It is the first time we have brought together all the different agencies to look at issues concerning school funding. 34 people sit on the Schools Forum. It is a very good consultative body and was particularly critical to the lead up to this year's budget.

Council Tax bills in Hampshire went up by 15% because funding was moved from the south of England to the north. This is the first of three years of those funding changes and the Council Tax bill increases could be repeated just to maintain the present level of spending.

Roger reminded governors that they need to agree and finalise their budgets this week. The Government are now conceding that the half a billion pounds that LEAs were accused of not releasing to schools was not in schools mainly because Councils were required to consult with schools about the distribution of the money and it simply did not go out with the budget shares.

All the money is targeted to specific areas.

On Friday the Government had made an announcement which had been summarised and sent to all schools on Monday. For this one year the devolved capital grant can be used on revenue providing a number of criteria are met

A full report is being prepared for the Schools Forum which meets during the week after half term. Schools have to get agreement of the local authority before using this money and the LEA will work closely with them.

Roger explained that £30 million is held in schools balances and he acknowledged that many of them are nervous about falling rolls.

The following questions were asked:

Was it illegal to set a deficit budget?

It is illegal to set a deficit budget. It cannot be approved by County but generally officers will try to help schools in this situation.

A governor suggested that the training course on finance encouraged governors to keep balances. Roger replied that schools were advised that about 2% was sufficient to act as a cushion. Schools were encouraged to justify any very high balances in their budget plans.

A governing body has a budget surplus of £20,000 and £40,000 of capital. They plan to improve the infra structure of the school. Could they use that £40,000 as part of the budget?

Only if they are facing a budget deficit.

You cannot generalise on demographics. You can only look at your school. In parts of Hampshire rolls are falling in other parts they are increasing. It is the first time since LMS that primary and secondary numbers are declining together. The reality is that across parts of Hampshire we will have to look at the provision of schools. Are they in the right place, are there too many or too few?

What percentage of our budget should we look to have at the end of each year?

Approximately 3%

If a school was in a deficit budget position last year and this year they were reducing that deficit they could use their devolved capital budget.

Could a school use the devolved budget to buy carpets?

Regulations might allow governors to use their devolved budget on carpets. Paul Cooper is the contact and he would check with Glen Parkinson.

What happens to the interest on the £30 million?

It was agreed that the interest should be spread among the schools and not just to those with high balances. This was discussed and agreed with the Schools Forum.

A Hampshire school that takes Surrey children asked why they did not receive the funding paid by Surrey.

Surrey funds their pupils at a lower rate than Hampshire.

Jane Pratt thanked Roger for a very helpful presentation. She explained to governors that views from HGRG are taken to the Schools Forum. Most of the governors on the Schools Forum are from HGRG. A list of people on the Schools Forum is attached.

Janice

6 REDUCING PAPERWORK

 Hazel Round introduced herself and explained that she had started as a Governor Services Co-ordinator in the Havant Office and then moved on to County. She now works three days in the County and two days as Co-ordinator in Fleet. She will probably be in Fleet until March 2004. She is also a governor of a small primary school.

Hazel explained that we are trying to decrease the amount of paperwork sent to governing bodies.

Local Forum minutes - It was agreed that these should continue to be sent to all governing bodies. A governor suggested that minutes might be sent by e-mail. At the moment not all governors have e-mail and it would be too expensive in staff time to send some out electronically and some manually. The minutes are also placed on the Hampshire Website www.hants.gov.uk/education/governors.

HGRG/County Forum - there was a proposal that these minutes should only be sent to the people who attended the meetings. They are placed on the Website and can be downloaded. The HGRG minutes (clerked by Governor Services) should be on the Website within one month of the meeting. A summary of the proceedings of County Forum is circulated with the agenda for the local forum. Governors felt this was very useful. Any governor wishing to have a hard copy of the minutes could request it from Governor Services.

Service Review Group minutes - At this meeting governor training is discussed and proposals made for changes to the programme. Minutes go to Training Liaison Governors and it was felt that it was still important to send to them.

Annual Training Directory - Three copies of the training directory are sent to schools, one for the headteacher, one for the chairman and one for the training liaison governor. There was a vote on this and votes were fairly equally divided as to whether one, two or three copies should be sent. Governors also felt that they could not decide this for other governors not present at the meeting and head teachers might also have a view. Hazel agreed to take the responses away and look at them together with the views from other fora in order to try to meet everyone's needs.

7 HAMPSHIRE RECRUITMENT SERVICE

 One governing body reported that they had recently used the Hampshire Recruitment Service and had been very disappointed with the lack of support they had received. They felt it would have been helpful to have one point of contact and were very unhappy to find that the closing date for applicants was changed without reference to them.

At this point another governor said they had received excellent support when they recently used the Service.

Lee Matthers, Education Personnel Officer, had asked to attend the forum to answer the criticisms. She explained that this was the first time Education Personnel had been made aware of the dissatisfaction. All governing bodies are sent a form to complete after a recruitment process and she had been unable to find one from this school.

She explained that they had changed their process now so that they only deal with the chairman of the governing body. She agreed that the closing date had been changed in order for an applicant to get his application form in. Education Personnel always look into any dissatisfaction and if there has been a problem they adjust their costs accordingly. Lee agreed to look into this further.

A county councillor explained that governing bodies can always contact their local county councillor if they have problems of this sort.

8 COUNTY FORUM/HGRG

(i) 6 Term Year - This had been taken to County Forum and there was a great deal of information about the results of the consultation published on the Website.

Funding for Able Children - There is no allowance for this.

(ii) Items to be taken to HGRG/County Forum - see Item 10.

9 CONSULTATION ON ANNUAL PARENTS' MEETING

 It was explained that there was a Stop Press quick link on the Hampshire Website to this consultation which was being carried out by DfES and ends on 20 June 2003. A governor expressed concern that governors had not been made aware of this. It was explained that this was DfES policy in order to reduce paperwork to schools but it was pointed out that the DfES publication `Spectrum' sent to all chairs of governors usually listed publications of this sort.

10 ANY OTHER BUSINESS

 School Security - Instances were raised where school vandalism had taken place and the police had not attended the school until two to three days later. It was pointed out that police are so stretched that unless someone is in danger they do not attend.

Jane agreed to take this to HGRG and take advice on the best way to take this forward.

Jane

11 FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS

 Hampshire Music Service - A speaker to be invited.

 Practical solutions to combat dog fouling.

Janice

12 DATES AND TIMES OF NEXT MEETINGS

 Tuesday, 23 September 2003 at Fleet Education Office

 Tuesday 27 January 2004 at Cranbourne School, Basingstoke

 Both at 7.15 pm for 7.30 pm

 The meeting ended at 9.30 pm.

 Advance Notice of an Opportunity to Visit In Tech

 Governors are to be invited to visit In Tech, a Science & Technology Activity Centre in Winchester on Monday 22 September at 7 pm. More details later but you might like to put the date in your diary!