The Portfolio Holder for Children,
Education and Families, Cllr Peter Fortune, attended the meeting to
respond to questions from the Committee. The Portfolio Holder
gave a brief introduction highlighting the following
issues:-
- The outcome of the Ofsted Inspection of
Adult Education had been fantastic and reflected the fundamental
changes to services delivery that had taken place.
- The last meeting of the Children’s
Service improvement Governance Board had taken place on Friday
8th March 2019. Thanks
needed to be extended to the Independent Chairman of the Governance
Board, Isobel Cattermole, for her invaluable contribution to
supporting the improvement journey.
-
School
places had now been allocated. 73% of
applicants had received their first choice. 96% of applicants had received one of their first
3 choices. These statistics were
testament to the extensive work that had been done around school place
planning.
- The Buller’s Wood
planning application for temporary buildings at the St Hugh’s
site had been submitted and was likely to be heard over the
next month or
so.
Cllr Fortune then responded to questions
making the following comments:-
- The Portfolio Holder acknowledged that
Members of the Committee could have been notified earlier of the
decision to submit the disapplication request. It was suggested that all Members of the Select
Committee should receive minutes from meetings of the
Schools’ Forum when they were published.
-
Following the
rejection of the disapplication request by the Secretary of State,
a contribution of £2m to high needs funding had been made by
the Council. On 27th March
2019 a delegation including representatives from the Local
Authority and Schools was due to meet the Minister in order to
raise issues around school funding.
- In relation to the planning
application for Buller’s Wood; the submission of the
application was done by the School and the ESFA. The Local Authority had no influence over how the
application was submitted and was not involved in the decision to
submit a separate application for the temporary
accommodation.
- The Executive Assistant for
the Children, Education and Families Portfolio noted that there was
a significant amount of misinformation about School Place
Planning. An event was being held on
18th March 2019, which sought to dispel some of the
myths about School Place Planning that existed.
- Bromley was a net importer of
pupils. Details of the number of pupils
offered places out-of-borough were not available at the
meeting. The Chairman suggested that
this type of question should be submitted to a Full Council meeting
to enable a full response to be provided.
- In relation to the
Aeronautical College at Biggin Hill, the Portfolio Holder was due
to meet with the Principal of London South East College to discuss
the next steps.
- The Portfolio Holder confirmed
that his support for the Select Committee process
vacillated. He could see that there
were significant benefits and the detailed scrutiny of specific
issues delivered some beneficial outcomes. However, there remained challenges around
identifying reports that were required to be presented to the
Committee. It was also noted that
traditionally there was not a requirement for the Portfolio Holder
to attend meetings of the Sub-Committee however under the Select
Committee arrangements there was an expectation that the Portfolio
Holder attended both the main meeting and the Sub-Committee
meeting.
The Chairman and Committee thanked the Portfolio Holder for
his update.