Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meetings held on 1^st October and 19^th December 2013 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Report of the Executive Director, People

The Acting Cabinet Member (Education) considered a report of the Executive Director, People, that summarised the data on pupil behaviour in schools and other educational settings in Coventry and sought approval of the further development of strategies to further improve pupil behaviour. 

National data for 2011/12 released in July 2013, showed the incidence of fixed term and permanent exclusions in Coventry continued to be below that for England and low in relation to statistical neighbours.  Local data for 2012/13 indicated that while the incidence of fixed term exclusion of 5 days or less had risen by 5% there had been significant reductions in fixed term exclusion of more than 5 days and in permanent exclusions.

RESOLVED that the Acting Cabinet Member (Education) approves the report and the further development of the identified strategies to further improve pupil behaviour.

Report of the Executive Director, People

The Acting Cabinet Member (Education) considered a report of the Executive Director, People, that provided details of the Standards, Progress and Achievement of Coventry Children at the end of each Key Stage: The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS); Key Stage 1 (KS1)-Aged 7; Key Stage 2 (KS2)-Aged 11; Key Stage 4 (KS4)-Aged 16; and Key Stage 5 (KS5)-Aged 18. It reported on the most recent comparative data, as at December 2013, about the performance of pupils at the five Key Stages and recommended priorities for improvements at each Key Stage.

RESOLVED that the Acting Cabinet Member (Education):

1)  Endorses the evaluation of the outcomes of the 2013 standards, progress and achievements of Coventry children at EYFS, KS1, KS2, KS4 and KS5.

2)  Approves the key priorities for the 2013-14 school improvement cycle detailed in the report for each key stage.

Report of the Executive Director, People

The Acting Cabinet Member (Education) considered a report of the Executive Director, People, that provided details of the number of racist Incidents recorded by Coventry schools during 2012/13 and subsequently reported to the local authority, the number of schools that did not make a return; the need to modify the method of reporting to the Cabinet Member, and the on-going measures to support schools in combating racism.

The importance and value of recording and reporting racist incidents by the Local Authority and schools was identified in the 2010 Equality Act and the 2012 Ofsted Framework. The City Council and Coventry schools had made considerable efforts to improve systems of the recording and reporting, enabling more reliable comparisons and conclusions to be made, thus supporting the development of evidence based strategies for combating racism.

RESOLVED that the Acting Cabinet Member (Education):

(1)  Notes the information provided in respect of the number of racist incidents for 2012/13.

(2)  Recognizes the need to ‘challenge’ schools that fail to provide a termly racial incident return.

(3)  Approves the modifications to the method of presentation and the support available to schools in respect of racist incident monitoring, recording and reporting.

(4)  Requests that he be advised, through the annual Racist Incident Monitoring Report, of those schools that have not provided termly racial incident returns.

Report of the Executive Director, People

The Acting Cabinet Member (Education) considered a report of the Executive Director, People, that detailed the pricing strategies of those Council services that provided services to schools and provided an update on whether these services were achieving full cost recovery.

The on-going financial situation presented significant challenges to the Council in balancing the revenue budget.  Setting the appropriate level for fees and charges was an important element in raising revenue to meet the medium term financial pressures.  It was essential that the Council maximised its income to ensure that, wherever possible, it at least recovered its costs for the services that were provided. Any Council service which provided a service to schools was required to adopting a consistent charging policy for the delivery of services to all schools, the starting point of which was that services recovered the full cost of service delivery. The Council service was required to

complete the Full Cost Recovery Tool on an annual basis to identify whether full cost recovery was achieved and if not, develop a pricing strategy or cost reduction strategy to move towards full cost recovery.

In identifying any shortfall between forecast income and expenditure, consideration needed to be given to the impact on school buy back if services increased charges by more than inflation.  In cases such as this action plans needed to include phased increases and/or cost reduction strategies to move towards full cost recovery. It was recognised that there may be some exceptions where there may be a valid reason why as service should not recover full cost which would require approval.  Appendix 1 to the report set out details of those services which were forecast to require a subsidy and did not have an action plan to move towards full cost recovery.

RESOLVED that the Acting Cabinet Member (Education):

(1)  Agrees the proposed Service Level Agreement charge increases as set out in appendix 1 to the report.

(2)  Requires services that are not achieving full cost recovery to set out a plan and timescale for moving towards full cost recovery.

(3)  Meets with the Cabinet Member (Strategic Finance and Resources) and the Executive Director, People, to give further consideration to apportionment in respect of Work Related Learning.

Executive Director, People

RESOLVEDthat, having met the Local Authority criteria for the appointment of Local Authority school governors, the Acting Cabinet Member (Education) approves the appointment and re-appointment of the persons listed below for the schools and terms of office indicated:-

Authority Governor: New Appointments

Authority Governor: Re-Appointments

There are no outstanding issues.

There were no outstanding issues.

Any other items of public business which the Cabinet Member decides to take as matters of urgency because of the special circumstances involved.

There were no other items of public business.