Meeting documents

Cabinet
Tuesday, 18 July 2006

CA180706-10

Return to Agenda

Division(s): N/A

ITEM CA10

CABINET – 18 JULY 2006

CHARGING POLICIES FOR ACTIVITIES IN SCHOOLS

Report by Councillor Melinda Tilley,
Deputy Chairman, Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee

  1. 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".

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  1. 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:

    1. to re-issue a clear and unambiguous statement of law, practice and general policy on schools’ charging on behalf of the authority as LEA;

    2. 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;

    3. 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.];

    4. 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;

    5. to ask all schools to ensure their prospectuses include a summary of their charging policy;

    6. that the Council perform, in effect, a sponsoring role - acting as the contact between the local schools and businesses;

    7. to engage the support of local MPs to promote the benefits of links between businesses and schools;

    8. 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.

  1. 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

Return to TOP