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States Greffe
Deputy Inna Gardiner , Minister for Children and Education BY EMAIL
10th July 2023
Dear Minister,
Scrutiny Review: Secondary Education Funding
Further to our letter of 21st June 2023, you will be aware that the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel is currently collecting evidence and information in relation to its review of secondary education funding.
As part of this evidence, the Panel would be grateful if you could respond with the following questions and requests for information to assist with its review. The questions below refer to ‘secondary schools’, using this term we refer to the provided schools, fee paying schools, special schools and, where relevant information is held, private schools:
Legal requirements
- Please could you provide a copy of the constitution document for the Jersey Curriculum Council (the ‘Council’) and / or provide further details of the Council’s duties, functions, powers and funding (as described per Article 59 and Schedule 5 of the Education (Jersey) Law 1999 (the ‘Law’)).
- Under Article 7 of the Law, ‘Duty of Minister to review the provision of school places’, paragraph 2(b), the Minister is required to ‘assess the current and future requirements for provision of school places by reference to the ages and numbers of the children of Jersey’. Please could you provide the Panel with some further details about how this is achieved.
- Please could you describe how the Minister and Department interact with the headteacher and, also, the governing body of each secondary school, particularly in relation to matters of planning expenditure?
(a) Please could you confirm whether the Minister has delegated any functions under Article 58 to governing bodies of secondary schools? If so, please provide details. If not, please could you advise when this might be required?
Financial statements
- In a table format, please could you provide a summary of the year end finances for each secondary school for the last five years, detailing:
- budget;
- actual expenditure; and
- the sum of variance.
- Please could you provide full copies of the year-end financial statements for each secondary school for 2021 and 2022?
- Please could you provide us with details of the budgeted and actual spend on school counsellor or wellbeing services for each secondary school for the last five years.
(a) Please could you confirm whether, going forward, the budget for counsellors in secondary schools is provided for through the Inclusion Base Funding budget?
Jersey Funding Formula for Schools
- Please could you confirm when the next update(s) to the ‘Jersey Funding Formula for Schools’ (the ‘funding formula’) will be published?
(a) Please provide details about any consultation with Headteachers and / or school governing bodies about the suitability and development of the funding formula?
- Please could you provide a breakdown of the funding formula calculation details used for each secondary school in 2022.
- The ‘Jersey Funding Formula for Schools: Rationale and Calculations for 2022’ stated (on page 6) that “A reduction to the mainstream components of 3.55% was applied to formula proposals to ensure the departmental budget was within available cash limits”. Please could you confirm the budget components that are classified as “mainstream” under the formula?
- Please could you provide further details and, if possible, a worked example of how the Inclusion Base Funding is calculated for schools?
- The ‘Jersey Funding Formula for Schools: Rationale and Calculations for 2022’ stated (on page 15) that “there is an intention to review the way funding is calculated for teachers in Secondary Schools during 2023 to ensure that it is simplified and provides an equitable base funding model”. Are you able to provide any further details on how this component of the formula will be developed?
Cross-Government working
- Please could you confirm the decision-making process and oversight within the Government of Jersey for the use of financial grants made to private schools?
(a) Please provide details of any payments or grants made to private secondary schools that have not been recorded as significant grants in the States of Jersey Annual Reports and Accounts during the last five years (i.e. payments under £75,000)?
- In the Government Plan 2023-2026, a value for money (VFM) savings target of £688,000 had been allocated to CYPES, however, it had not been identified where the savings would be found. Have any VFM savings been identified within secondary school education for 2023?
- If so, please could you confirm where the savings have been identified?
- If not, please could you explain how, or if, CYPES reviewed possible VFM savings for secondary schools?
- Could you describe the relationship structure between CYPES, individual secondary schools, and Jersey Property Holdings? (Please highlight any service level agreements and funding flows / financial transfers as part of the response).
Metrics and monitoring
- In a table format please could you provide the GCSE exam results data (and any other KS4 qualifications) for each secondary school in the last five years.
- Please could you confirm whether CYPES records Progress 8 scores and Attainment 8 scores for secondary school pupils?
(a) If so, please could you provide details of these for each secondary school in the last five years.
- Please could you provide details of how CYPES records absence rates across secondary schools.
(a) In a table format please could you provide the data collected on absence rates, for each secondary school, across the last 12 months.
- In a table format, please could you confirm the number of i) bullying incidents; and ii) wellbeing concern matters, that have been recorded in each secondary school in the past 12 months.
The Panel would be grateful of a response in writing in the first instance as it is intended to publish this as part of the evidence for its review.
We’d be grateful for a written response to be sent by 5 pm on 17th July 2023 (5 working days). However, we acknowledge that there are a large number of questions and data requests in this letter therefore, if you require a longer period of time to respond please liaise with the Panel’s Committee and Panel Officer, Katherine de Carteret by email at k.decarteret@gov.je or telephone on 01534 441041.
Yours sincerely,
Deputy Catherine Curtis
Chair, Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel