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ITEM CA10
CABINET
– 18 JULY 2006
CHARGING
POLICIES FOR ACTIVITIES IN SCHOOLS
Report by
Councillor Melinda Tilley,
Deputy Chairman, Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee
- In September
2005 the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee agreed to add the topic
"Charging in Schools policy" to its Work Programme. It was
included in the Programme on the basis of representations at the Committee
by a parent and by an advocate on behalf of the Abingdon Citizen’s Advice
Bureau citing widespread concern about the costs faced by parents when
sending their children to school. As endorsed by the Scrutiny Co-ordinating
Group the topic was to be the subject of a "high priority, short, contained
scrutiny review".
- A Lead Member
Group comprising Cllrs Mrs Anda Fitzgerald-O’Connor, Keith Stone, Mrs
Sue Matthew and Mrs Carole Thomson undertook preparatory work. The
Group decided that the best way of undertaking the review would be by
a single question and answer session at a meeting of the full Scrutiny
Committee. This took place at the meeting on 23 May, when the Committee
worked in "select committee" mode and questioned invited members, staff
and representatives of parents and the community. I presided over this
session in the absence of Councillor Fitzgerald-O’Connor.
- The review session
gave us the opportunity to scrutinise the extent to which the law and
model policy and guidance on charging is put into practice in schools.
It was preceded by a brief presentation of the pertinent issues. We
also had the benefit of a background paper and other supporting material,
which can be seen in the Members’ Resource Centre.
- The "lines
of inquiry" that the Committee focused on were:
- The law, policy,
guidance and practice.
- Ways of sharing
and promoting good practice.
- The Intra/Internet
– its capacity for business and community suggestions.
- Actions to highlight
problem school practices and particular schools.
- Resource and
monitoring issues.
- Issues of fairness
and equity around charging and the question of "what else
can we be doing to ensure the operation of a fair and open charging
policy?"
- Creative thinking
and publicity about charging for extra curricular activities.
- SEN and the
Deprivation Index.
- Following
questions and replies from the invited witnesses (who included the relevant
Cabinet Member, officers from Children, Young People & Families
Directorate, deputy head teachers, governors, parent representatives,
the Oxfordshire Outdoor Learning Trust and staff responsible for health
and safety of school trips), we formulated the following recommendations
to the Cabinet:
- to re-issue
a clear and unambiguous statement of law, practice and general policy
on schools’ charging on behalf of the authority as LEA;
- to ensure
by authorising a short letter of guidance to schools, that letters
issued by schools to parents concerning plans and arrangements for
school trips make it clear that the schools can only request voluntary
contributions;
- to ensure
that schools’ charging and remissions policies and examples of trip
notices are included in the materials required for submission to each
School Improvement Partner (for roll-out before September 2006 in
Oxfordshire secondary schools and September 2007 in the County’s primary
schools). [For reasons of resource efficiency, details of schools’
charging policies should be systematically included in the inspection
materials to be produced under the regular schools monitoring regime.];
- to ask the
Director for Children, Young People & Families to prepare, by
September 2006, a detailed report on the sources and allocation of
funding to alleviate social deprivation for consideration by the Children’s
Services Scrutiny Committee. This report should include a specific
assessment on the dedication/earmarking of a proportion of such funds
to increase access to participation in school trips (particularly
for schools in rural areas) and, to this end, to henceforth include
a specific line for school trips in the budget planning spreadsheet;
- to ask all
schools to ensure their prospectuses include a summary of their charging
policy;
- that the
Council perform, in effect, a sponsoring role - acting as the contact
between the local schools and businesses;
- to engage
the support of local MPs to promote the benefits of links between
businesses and schools;
- to request
Officers to report back on the prospect of or possibility of reviewing
the music tuition charging policy in the light of the costs for music
tuition in primary schools.
- I commend
these recommendations to the Cabinet.
MELINDA TILLEY
Deputy Chairman,
Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee
Background Papers: Nil
Contact Officer: Julian
Hehir, Scrutiny Review Officer, Tel 01865 81
July 2006
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