Agenda and minutes

County Councillors Paul Rigby and Sean Serridge replaced County Councillors Barrie Yates and Sobia Malik respectively for this meeting.

County Councillor Ron Woollam replaced County Councillor Joan Burrows permanently on the Education and Children's Services Scrutiny Committee.

Apologies were received from Mrs Janet Hamid, Co-Optee Voting Member representing Parent Governors (Secondary).

The report set out the constitution, membership, chair and deputy chair and terms of reference of the new Education and Children's Services Scrutiny Committee for the remainder of the municipal year 2021/22.

Resolved: That the following be noted:

1.  The appointment of County Councillors Andrea Kay and Julia Berry as Chair and Deputy Chair of the Committee for the remainder of the 2021/22 municipal year.

2.  The Membership of the Committee following the County Council's Annual Meeting on 15 July 2021; and

3.  The new Terms of Reference of the Committee.

Members are asked to consider any Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the Agenda.

County Councillors Anne Cheetham, Jennifer Mein, Paul Rigby and Rupert Swarbrick declared non-pecuniary interests as they were governors of schools.

Resolved: The minutes from the meeting held on 11 March 2021 were confirmed as an accurate record.

The Chair welcomed to the meeting Mel Ormesher, Head of Service Asset Management; Mike Kirby, Director of Strategy and Performance; Lynn Macdonald, School Planning Manager; and Debbie Ormerod, Access to Education Entitlements Lead Officer.

A presentation was delivered providing the committee with an overview of the planning, statutory duties, data, housing demands and longer term projects that informed the strategy which was due to Cabinet for consideration in the near future. The focus of the strategy was to have the right number of school places, in the right areas, at the right time to meet demand.

The aspirations of the strategy were for Lancashire to be a county for children of all abilities do well in its first class schools, colleges and universities, gaining skills for life. School Place Planning was a statutory duty for the county council as an education authority to provide a Lancashire place for every Lancashire child who wanted one. The committee was informed that all children in England between the age of 5 and 16 were entitled to a free place at a state school. State schools received their funding through their local authority or directly from the government.

The School Planning approach was evidence based. There was a twice yearly pupil forecast using pupil census, in-year migration and district supplied housing data.

There were three main areas of funding for projects:

1.  The Department for Education Basic Need Grant. This was allocated on an annual basis against the School Capacity and Places Survey (SCAP) return as the proportion of the overall pot for England.

2.  Schools could make their own contributions, mainly for fixtures and fittings, ICT, etc.

3.  Regarding housing developers, the authority sought to obtain funding from the Section 106 Agreement or the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).

In terms of longer term growth there was ongoing dialogue with district councils in relation to long term planning as part of their Local Plans. It was important to secure education infrastructure to mitigate the impact of housing developments. Where the need for a new school was identified at the Local Plan stage the authority considered requirements for early years and special education needs.

Comments and questions raised were as follows:

·  Members enquired where the county council stood regarding planning developments and Section 77 playing field requirements. Section 77 was brought in to protect school playing fields building projects. When there was a proposal for building works there would be a calculation around the implication of the developments on the site. There were mechanisms in place to compensate for building on playing fields i.e. replacing the natural playing fields with all-weather playing fields. However, members were advised that the county council did everything it could to protect schools with playing fields.

·  The committee enquired about how many children had applied for secondary school places after having started primary school and then been taken out. In addition, there were a number of children that were not able to maintain a full term in school due to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Committee received a report which provided information on the draft work programme for the Education and Children's Services Scrutiny Committee.

The topics included in the work programme were identified at the work planning workshop held on 5 July 2021.

There was a request for the Family Safeguarding Model to come to a future meeting of the committee.

Regarding the item on the Education Strategy in November, there was a request for what the school provision was for children with dual languages.

Resolved: That;

1.  The report presented be noted.

2.  Additional topics identified be included in the work programme.

An item of urgent business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the Minutes, the Chair of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency.  Wherever possible, the Chief Executive should be given advance warning of any Member’s intention to raise a matter under this heading.

There were no items of Urgent Business.

The next meeting of the Education and Children's Services Scrutiny Committee will be held on Tuesday 5 October 2021 at 10.30am at County Hall, Preston.

The next meeting of the Education and Children's Services Scrutiny Committee would take place on Tuesday 5 October 2021 at 10.30am at County Hall, Preston.