10:40pm Wednesday 10th March 2010
By Emma Streatfield
SCHOOLS face a £1m hit on their budgets this year to cover an estimated £500,000 overspend on education services.
The sum will be divided between all secondary and primary schools in the borough for the 2010/2011 financial year.
Headteachers said they hoped that taking the one-off large cut now would help reduce the accumulated deficit to be paid in years to come.
This decision was passed unanimously at a Schools Forum meeting, involving school and council representatives, at the civic offices on Tuesday.
It must now be sent to the Secretary of State for approval.
Drove Primary School Headteacher Nick Capstick, who was on the sub forum that made the recommendation, said: “This is not to support existing regimes in the local authority.
“We’re still looking for cuts, it wasn’t about schools giving back to the local authority so things can continue as they are.
“It was about offsetting next year’s debt.”
The decision was made in conjunction with a discussion on how schools will meet the costs of Equal Pay compensation.
The annual Dedicated Schools Grant from the Department of Children Schools and Families totals around £116m, of which 87 per cent is given directly to schools and the remaining 13 per cent is retained to provide various services such as home tutoring or out of area provision.
A report stated the funding shortfall by March 31 this year is predicted to reach £501,000.
This is despite efforts to reduce this deficit since the previous meeting in February with cuts of £28,000 from all areas and a further £132,000 saved in anticipated early years provision. The shortfall will be carried over into next year’s schools budget.
Added to all predicted spending on education in 2010/2011 year, this would lead to an overspend next year of £859,000.
The cutbacks will be dealt out proportionally to all secondary and primary schools depending on the number of pupils they have.
For example Kingsdown School with 1,266 pupils will lose £46,164 while Oakhurst Community Primary School with 48 will lose £1,750.
Sally Inskip, representing the diocese of Clifton and the Church of England Diocese, on behalf of voluntary aided schools, said she wanted to ensure that cutbacks to services continued to be made in spite of the schools’ sacrifice.
She said: “I just wonder how robust the budget setting is for all the departments. We need to be very stringent.”
Following the meeting, Paddy Bradley, director of schools and learning, pointed out that £500,000 from a total schools budget of £116m was less than one per cent.
Mr Bradley said Swindon was the 17th lowest funded local authority for schools in the country, but added that greater funding did not necessarily increase standards of achievement.
He said: “If you look at performance of schools we have got above average numbers of schools performing well at Ofsted.”
Ian Bickerton, director of access and provision, said: “It does show the really good relationship between schools and the local authority to agree this.
“The problem doesn’t go away so they’re looking ahead and saying lets tackle this head on.”
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