Issue - meetings

Report ED15105

At the meeting on 25^th June 2015 the Forum had considered a request to agree the creation of an earmarked reserve of £300k for redundancy costs to be funded from Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). The proposal had been deferred to allow the regulations to be checked.  

A further report was presented which confirmed that it was possible to charge redundancy costs to the DSG, with the approval of the Schools Forum, if savings exceeded costs, the budget did not increase from the previous year and provided that approval from the Secretary of State was obtained. It was now proposed that, rather than create a reserve, a budget funded from the DSG underspend carried forward from previous years would be set up. The budget would be earmarked for redundancy costs relating to DSG funded services only, where the ongoing annual savings exceeded the redundancy costs. The Forum was informed that although education services was currently subject to market testing, and there was a need to ensure that the configuration of the department was fit for purpose there were currently no specific plans for redundancies, and the budget was requested so that appropriate funding decisions could be made in a timely way in future.  

Members of the Forum were still sceptical that this was an appropriate or necessary use of DSG funds and after discussion it was decided that the proposal could not be supported.  

RESOLVED that the recommendation to agree that a disapplication request be made to the Secretary of State to allow the creation of a DSG Redundancy Reserve of £300k is not supported.