LIVERPOOL GOVERNANCE FORUM

Minutes of Committee Meeting held at 10:00 on Tuesday 10th December 2019 at:
Belle Vale Primary School, Besford Road, Liverpool L25 2QF 

Guest speaker: Avril O'Brien, committee member will provide some feedback on her school's recent inspection: The new Ofsted inspection; a governor's experience / view point!”  (Refer to Appendix A)

1.0 STANDARD ITEMS:

1.1	Welcome and Apologies

Present: Kathy Desmond (Chair), Frank McFarlane (Vice Chair), David Blythe (Honorary Secretary), Dave Cadwallader, Dave Owens, Cliff Barton, Pauline Warrington, Cynthia Carmichael, Marlene Taylor, Howard Harris, Avril O’Brian and Barbara Murray,   

Apologies: Mary Donohue, Amanda Patmore, Michael Morris, Maureen McDaid, Andy Chadwick and John Thornhill

Guest / Visitor: Martin Preston 
                                    
1.2	 Declaration of Pecuniary Interest
No change. 

        1.3 Minutes of the September Meeting       
The minutes of the meeting held on 15th October 2019 had already been agreed by email and posted on the LGF website. 

1.4	 Matter Arising

There were 2 items arising and all had been actioned as follows: 

Topic	
(1) Review the time for holding of the AGM (NB: Transferred from AGM meeting) – Action All
Agreed we hold this matter until we start drafting our 2020/21 schedule of meetings next June. 
	
(2) Highlight to NGA issues of non-receipt of the Governing Matters magazine by some committee members – Action DFB
The magazine is now available on the NGA website and when we request changes to mailing list, NGA do not automatically send out hard copies of the magazine unless it is specifically requested. Request has been made that all members receive a hard copy.

2.0 LGF Matters and Events

     2.1 Finance
At the end of November, the account balance was £4254:42. However, this did not take into account the cost of the November conference, which estimated at £823. 

The bank account was ‘frozen’ on the 21st November, which caused a cheque to be rejected. This was due to HSBC not fully updating their system and for some bizarre reason sending a letter to the previous treasurer’s address requesting us to book an appointment for a telephone interview to meet the requirements of a safeguarding exercise. In view of LGF not being aware of and therefore not responding to the letter, HSBC blocked the account. 

The interview has now taken place on 5th December and a formal complaint submitted to HSBC. 
      
    2.2 Feedback from Events 
The 2019 November / autumn conference was held on Saturday 16th November at Partnership for Learning when Ruth Town delivered and facilitated a session on “Headteacher and staff wellbeing; “How can Governing Bodies ease the pressure?”. 

The event was well received by the 47 delegates attending and further details are provided in the conference summary report circulated to committee members and also available on the LGF website. 
With regards to the venue costs, the following was noted:

•	The hire of the Novartis room has increased from £204 to £240
•	The cost of the breakfast barms was £2.64 per head compared to the lunch cost at our May conference which was £7:80 per head. (Prices include VAT)

     2.3 Future Events
Details of the spring and autumn terms events were circulated in advance of the meeting - from which it was noted we are still looking for school venues and guest speakers.

Suggestions on conference topics included Governor Recruitment and SEND. BM mentioned that the council had engaged a consultant with a view to engaging business representatives to become school governors. Their expertise would be helpful in understanding employment matters and the skill set which businesses require. 

NB: HH subsequently suggested the Mansion House, Calderstones as a possible future venue for conferences. 
  
    2.4 Website
Peter Hartley has now been given the go ahead to develop the new website. It will be necessary to increase the annual maintenance charge from £500 to £575. This is primarily to cover the additional annual charges for making the new website user friendly for mobile phones and tablets. This was agreed by committee. 

There have been 211 hits since our October meeting making a total of 1846 hits for this year to date. This is higher than normal and probably due governors accessing the November conference papers. 

      2.5 Twitter Account
 AO’B advised the account remains very active and we have increased our followers to over 512. 

3.0 Feedback from Representatives
			
3.1 Liverpool Schools Forum
CB, MMcD, DO, MT & DFB attended the meeting on 20th November when the key discussion was on budgets. The main points were as follows:

•	Schools Block: 18-20% of Liverpool Schools will benefit from the introduction of the NFF.
•	Schools Central Block: Historic Commitments face a 20% cut. The main areas for this were:

o	Schools parliament £82, 751 to £50,000
o	PFI unitary charge contribution £349,161 to nil 
o	Capital expenditure £1,712,901 to £1,526,791 (makes up the total required reduction)
o	SEN Transport: £550,00 to nil (to be funded from High Needs Block) 
The reasoning for these reductions were:

1. To move the SEN transport contribution to the High Needs block which is permitted in the funding regulations and there is scope within the budget. 
2. Remove PFI contribution which it is estimated can be funded from within the PFI grant and school contributions, there may need to be some review of the formula factor for PFI to ensure schools are not disadvantaged. 
3. Reduce Schools parliament to £50,000 subject to a working party being established to review operation of school parliament and agree future structure and funding requirements. Initially support will be guaranteed to the end of the current academic year with the working party reporting back to Forum by March 2020 on proposed arrangements from September 2020. 
4. The balance of the reduction required has been taken from capital contribution. 
Early Years only seeing an 8 pence increase in funding which is very challenging.  
De-delegation: Proposal for secondary schools to have a schools- causing -concern fund – principles and the benefits were discussed. There were strong advocates from the primary sector as there have been improved Ofsted outcomes in a time of falling performance indicators. Broad support was gained. This will come to LASH and full costings to follow.
School Deficit Recovery process – an outline of the process and what needs to happen was presented and it appears quite reasonable and thorough.

The next LSF meeting is scheduled for Monday 13th January 2020. 

CB, MMcD and DFB also attended the LSF Formula sub-committee meeting on 6th December. The key item for this meeting was the 2020/21 schools block allocation and for the committee to agree the best option to recommend to the full LSF on 13th January 2020. At this stage it was only possible to estimate as the final data from the DfE is still awaited and is normally provided before the Christmas break. However, it was recognised this could be delayed due to the election. 

Based on current data the overall 2020/21 allocation for Liverpool schools is estimated at £323,255,942 and the allocation per school supports the transition to the NFF. 

3.2 LLP Executive Board
 The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 11th February 2020. 

3.3 LLP All Learners 
 The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 22nd January 2020.

3.4 LLP LWNM
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 29th January 2020. 

3.5 LLP Maths Group
PW attended the last meeting and reported that 21 schools are currently engaged in the ‘Liverpool Counts Quality Mark’. Following a review of the annual Maths Party event, which is normally held in early July, decision was taken to move it to the autumn school term as schools calendars are not so busy then.  The next one is being planned for 25th September 2020. With regards to the ‘Dragons Den’, there was considerably less interest from schools this year so a critical review is to be carried out. 
 
3.6 Liverpool Safeguarding Partnership Forum
FMcF advised that he attended the meeting on 4th December, which focused on ‘neglect’. There was concern that the agencies do not talk to each other and there was a major dependency on school staff to report instances. A review is to be carried out to establish ‘what works well and what does not work well’

3.7 SEND Joint Commissioning Board (JCB):
MT was unable to attend the last meeting but will forward the minutes to DFB for circulation when available. 
  
3.8 School Admissions Forum
BM and AO’B attended the recent meeting held at LACE. The main purpose of this forum: 

•	Establish a uniform model of admissions across the city for both primary and secondary schools
•	In-city transfers to be dealt with by school - Social inclusion and LCC where necessary 
•	New to city to be dealt with by LCC to ensure tighter compliance with the School Admissions Code and improve safeguarding of children new to the city by securing them a school place as quickly as possible
•	Pilot system to run from January 2020

Due to limited resources the main support will be moved from secondary schools to primary schools as this was considered the main problem area. 

     4.0 Other Items for Mention

BM mentioned three items:

(1) The Mayor’s ‘2020 Year of Reading’ project, which is primarily aimed at promoting the importance of reading. Events would be taking place each month throughout the year and across the city with the launch taking place in January. Two key themes would be: ‘Reading for pleasure’ and ‘Reading for purpose’ with a key aim of encouraging early reading. The project is not aimed exclusively at schools but the whole Liverpool community. 

Whist the Liverpool Festival Reading had achieved some considerable success, it was recognised this was limited to its captured audience and people outside the focused target group were not aware of the event. 

(2) There will be a Skills event day to be held on 29th January 2020 which will be supported by the DWP. 

(3) To give LGF members a broader view of what was happening in the city, BM said she would circulate her reports to the Education select committee and the Employment select committee. 

      4.1 NGA 
       Nothing to report.                 

The Chair closed the meeting at 11:50.   

SUMMARY OF ACTIONS FROM TODAY’S MEETING	
No	TOPIC	ACTION BY	
1	Investigate suitable alternative venues for holding our half yearly conferences with cost comparisons with P4L 
	DC	
2	Forward the minutes of the SEND JCB meeting when available to DFB for circulation to committee members 
Information subsequently circulated to committee and action closed	MT	

Next meeting: 

(1) The next committee meeting will be at 10am on Tuesday 21st January 2020 at Mosspits Lane Primary, Mosspits Lane, Wavertree, Liverpool L15 6UN. 

APPENDIX A

Guest Speaker: Avril O'Brien, committee member will provide some feedback on her school's recent inspection: “The new Ofsted inspection; a governor's experience / view point!”

NB: The revised inspection framework was issued by Ofsted in May 2019 and came into effect on the 1st September 2019.

KD introduced Avril as our guest speaker, although being a long standing committee member Avril needed little introduction. 

Avril went on to provided members with an explanation of her experience during the recent Ofsted inspection at the school were she is a governor and provided everyone present with a comprehensive range of support documentation. It is, therefore, only intended to mention in these notes some key facts.

Generally speaking, the inspection was a constructive approach and at the heart of it were the understanding of the schools 3i’s; intent, implantation and impact. 

Judgement was made through the collection of 3 main evidence sources: 

•	Pre-inspection information, including a 90 minute phone call, 
•	Deep dives through a range of interviews with leaders at all levels, lesson observations work scrutiny, discussions with teachers and pupils covering reading and maths together with one or two foundation subjects
•	Bringing the information collated together – triangulation 

Although it was not expected the inspectors would look at specific groups, they did in fact spend time with the SEND coordinator and lead governor. Also, they were still keen to understand performance data and pupil progress. 

 Some other key points highlighted by Avril included:

•	5 governors attended the inspection and the conversation was an easy flowing conversation with the inspectors picking up on points mentioned during discussion and coming back for clarification
•	The schools vision and ethos
•	Its strengths and weaknesses
•	Governance; how governors challenge, support the Headteacher and drive improvements and monitoring 
•	The website and its contents 
•	Disadvantage pupils, including intentions and workshops for parents
•	Character and resilience of pupils
•	Teacher workload, health and wellbeing, work life balance 
•	Staff inset days

Documents issued to LGF members:

1.	Governors Note of Visit – (Governors Deep Dive)
2.	Governors Visit Questioning Guide & Termly Monitoring  report
3.	Prompts for governors observing lessons
4.	Discussions with Subject Leader
5.	Monitoring Childrens work – Book / work scrutiny
6.	Governing Body Action Plan

Kathy Desmond, LGF Chair thanked Avril for sharing her experience and making it an informative and interesting session which would no doubt benefit the governors / trustees present.