About Govas

GOVAS works closely with the Stockport Children and Young People Directorate, but we are a fully independent association of governors affiliated to the equally independent National Governors Association. Every governor in Stockport is automatically a GOVAS member (as long as your institution pays their subscriptionof £10.00 PA)and our Management Committee is made up exclusively of serving volunteer governors in Stockport’s schools – nursery, primary secondary and special. Our biggest strength is our links with all the school governors in Stockport through our newsletter, special communications, and this website.  

 

An improved schools' financial benchmarking service has been launched online by the Department for Education following feedback from users. The service enables LA-maintained schools and academies to compare their performance data and spending levels with schools that share similar characteristics such as:

  • pupil numbers
  • school phase/type
  • proportion of pupils with special educational needs
  • proportion of pupils who are eligible for free school meals
  • proportion of pupils with English as an additional language

We will continue to develop and improve the service based on users’ feedback, which can be submitted on the website. For general queries about the service functions, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.      

The benchmarking service will help school leaders and governors consider how they can use available resources to have maximum impact in supporting high-quality teaching and ensuring the best possible educational outcomes for their pupils.

 

Mrs Dawn Boyes

All schools are facing challenging times financially and making better use of the available money we have is going to be a key theme for some time. As well as the support from the LA, there is a lot of information out there. The DfE have produced resource packs and NGA have recently announced training workshops. As we revealed at the Conference, we have put on a workshop on Financial Efficiency and it took take place at Priestnall School on Wednesday July 5th at the Café Mersey. It was run in conjunction with the GOVAS AGM, which was as brief as ever.  The workshop was led by a practitioner (Dawn Boyles biography see below ) skilled in presenting, so we have been working with the National Association of School Business Managers and one of their trainers, Dawn Boyes, who is a School Business Manager, who delivered the workshop.

DAWN BOYES (Biography)

Is Business Director at Keswick School, a multi academy trust in Cumbria. She has extensive experience as a school business professional with experience of working in a grammar school, an inner city secondary and a rural secondary.

She worked as part of a demonstration project, developing the role of SBM across two primary schools and also worked with other secondary schools to look at best practise in developing procurement models across schools.

From 2008-2013 she was an SBM Advocate for the NCTL and since 2014 has been an Associate Practitioner foe the NASBM. Dawn is currently working as the lead employer developing the School Business Director Apprenticeship which it is hoped will be available by September 2017 and is working with ILM on development of their new suite of School Business Qualifications.

 

For all those who attended the slides are available here now 

 

 

 

The School Forum who are they and what do they do click here for further information

Welcome to the 20th edition of the Schools Forum Newsletter........
In this issue, we are including key points from the Schools Forum meeting held on 18 May 2017 particularly; Schools Budget 2016/17 Final Outturn, The 2016/17 Final School Balances, School Insurance Schemes 2016/17 Outturn, Schools Financial Value Standard, Schools Formula Funding and DSG Review Update. A full copy of the minutes will be made available via the Council web-site in due course, see section 10 below.
Schools Forum Meeting 18 May 2017 – Key Points


1. Matters Arising from 16 March 2017 Meeting minutes
Peter Hughes provided update in relation to item 13 (i) School Water Sewerage charges – Following the lobbying of United Utilities (UU) Water Company (campaign led by Sefton Council) we have received notification that UU will reduce school charges by 50% in 2018/19 and will also be applying a retrospective 15% credit to the 2017/18 school bills. Peter Hughes and Stephen Bell will co-ordinate a communication to all schools shortly.

2. SCHOOLS BUDGET 2016/17 FINAL OUTTURN
Report presented as tabled
Discussion: Peter Hughes outlined the net adjusted final outturn (£0.417m) is to be credited to the DSG reserve and will be utilised to support the 2018/19 budget setting process (see Agenda Item 12).
Decisions: N/A.

Actions:
1. Schools’ Forum members to note the report.

3. 2016/17 FINAL SCHOOL BALANCES
Report presented as tabled

Discussions: N/A
Decisions: N/A

Actions:
1. Schools’ Forum members to note the report; and
2. Further update on outcomes of excessive surplus balance control mechanism to be provided in due course.

4. SCHOOL INSURANCE SCHEMES 2016/17 FINAL OUTTURN

Welcome back to the Summer Term: SATS and elections, what more could we ask for? Maybe a resolution to the National (Fairer) Funding Formula would be welcome, and school funding in general, but i’m afraid that must wait until after the General Election now.

Firstly, a big thank you to all of you who made the Stockport Governor Conference the best ever. Over 140 of you converged on Marple and the feedback, which you can see on our website (-click here-) was overwhelmingly positive. One area that we can improve is to improve the description of the workshop contents, so that is already on the list for next year. 

As usual, the support of the LA was vital to the success of the conference and the presentations are all now on GovernorHub.

As referred to above, the results of the second stage of the consultation on the NFF have now been delayed until after the election. Regardless of this, all schools are facing challenging times financially and making better use of the available money we have is going to be a key theme for some time. As well as the support from the LA, there is a lot of information out there. The DfE have produced resource packs and NGA have recently announced training workshops. As we revealed at the Conference, we have been working on putting together a workshop on Financial Efficiency and we are now pleased to announce that it will take place at Priestnall School on Wednesday July 5th. It will run in conjunction with the GOVAS AGM, which will be as brief as ever, and is provisionally scheduled for 6-9pm. We were keen to have the workshop led by a practitioner skilled in presenting, so we have been working with the National Association of School Business Managers and one of their trainers, Dawn Boyes, who is a School Business Manager, will be delivering the workshop. 

We will inform you as soon as this event is open for registration, but please make a note in your diaries.

Enjoy the term!

The School Forum who are they and what do they do click here for further information

In this issue, we are including key points from the Schools Forum meeting held on 16 March 2017 particularly; School Admissions Appeals, The 2017/18 Schools Budget Update, Scheme for Financing Schools proposed amendments and the National Fairer Funding Formula (Stage 2 consultation documents). A full copy of the minutes will be made available via the Council web-site in due course, see section 9 below.
Schools Forum Meeting 16 March 2017 – Key Points

1. Matters Arising from 26 January 2017 Meeting minutes
No key matters arsing to report.

2. SCHOOL ADMISSION APPEALS PROCESS
Report presented as tabled
Discussions: Short discussion took place relating to the actual process and how could head teachers request input/attendance to the actual appeals hearing meeting.
Decisions: N/A.

Actions:
1. Schools Forum members to note the report; and
2. Karen McCrevey to circulate information to head teachers outlining the process / administrative arrangement to all head teachers

3. 2017/18 SCHOOLS BUDGET UPDATE
Report presented as tabled

Discussions:
1. Discussion took place relating to representatives on the DSG review group and could representation be extended to respective head teacher consortia groups – Agreed.

Decisions:
1. Sue (Queensgate), Danny (Post 16 Aquinas) and Ian Roberts (Vice-Chair/Primary Governor) all agreed to be part of review group again.

Actions:
1. PB/PH to arrange meeting for the DSG review group to meet (approx. May) and invite all Schools Forum representatives and Headteacher reps share detail with wider consortia groups.

4. SCHEME FOR FINANCING SCHOOLS – 2016 PROPOSALS

Workload is one of the main reasons that teachers give for considering leaving the profession and latest research published shows that working hours are still too high. The DfE have published an action plan that provides an update about how they have been helping to remove unnecessary workload along with further activities they intend to undertake in the future. The plan is based around the three biggest concerns that teachers have raised - marking, planning and resources, and data management. Review groups were set-up to cover these areas, and you can access the reports here:

Report from Marking Policy Review Group – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reducing-teacher-workload-marking-policy-review-group-report

Report from Planning and Resources Review Group – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reducing-teacher-workload-planning-and-resources-group-report

Report from Data Management Review Group – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reducing-teacher-workload-data-management-review-group-report

You will find a poster on our website (click this link) and leaflet on our web-site (click this link) to help you review your expectations on Headteachers and senior leadership teams, and to support ‘Reducing Workload’ initiatives in your schools.

We would be delighted to receive any examples of reducing workload initiatives and how successful they have been.

Finally, a reminder that it is the Stockport Governors Conference on Saturday 11th March. (Register Here) We look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

1. Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
2. Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils, and the performance management of staff; and
3. Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.

You will be familiar with the three core functions of school governance, but we’re sure that many of you are struggling with the third one.

In the 2016 NGA/TES survey of governors and trustees, they received 5000 responses and found funding shortages are already having a real impact: 26% reported having made redundancies in the previous 12 months – but this number rose to 55% among secondary schools. 60% said that financial constraints would mean they need to reduce spending on staff over the next two years, rising to 77% for secondary schools.33% of those responding said that their school's offer to pupils has been reduced as a result of funding constraints and, again, this included 60% of secondary school governors and trustees.

These experiences back up findings of the National Audit Office, which is forecasting an 8% real-terms reduction in per-pupil funding for mainstream schools between 2014-15 and 2019-20 due to cost pressures. This is because, while the 2015 Spending Review protected the overall schools budget from forecast inflation, the projected increase in pupil numbers means that funding per pupil will, on average, see a real-terms reduction once inflation is taken into account. On top of this, schools are already absorbing higher costs through higher employer national insurance and pension contributions. When the apprenticeship levy comes into operation in April, this will put further strain on the budgets of many maintained schools.

The new national funding formula (NFF) is supposed to achieve fairer funding across England, but as proposed the NFF will not entirely end the school funding postcode lottery and will not make life any easier for many schools in the lowest funded areas, such as Stockport. This is in large part because the proposed changes are being made at a time of increasing costs for schools, and therefore the basic amount provided for each pupil is insufficient.

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