“Horrendous and frightening” financial situation for Wrexham’s schools

“Something has got to give” was a warning given over budgets for schools in Wrexham, with a meeting told “We can’t physically cut another penny”.

Councillors on the Customers, Performance, Resources and Governance Scrutiny Committee met to discuss Budget Monitoring and Control for this financial year, that included an update on Wrexham’s school budget situation.

Councillors were looking at the overall control of budgets, and to probe any issues that were highlighted, and perhaps discover further information. The actual scrutiny was limited, however there was a firm unhappiness at the state of Wrexham’s education finances but not due to any technical failings but the wider budgetary context.

The below table shows the opening balance for each school as at 1st April this year, the revised projected balance at this stage for 31st March 2019 and the projected balance carried forward as a percentage of the school’s budget.

The report before councillors showed overall delegated budget balances for Wrexham schools are projected to reduce during through the financial year by £2.05m to a net total deficit figure of £39,000.

There were ten schools in deficit as at 1 April 2018, six Primary schools and five Secondary schools, with the authority’s Special School operating under approved licensed deficit conditions in 2018/19.

The report noted: “The above projections do not include all of the uplift to teachers’ pay which applies from 1 September 2018. On 13 September 2018 the UK Government announced that the Welsh Government will be receiving additional funding of £8.7m in 2018/19 and £14.8m in 2019/20 representing the cost of the teachers’ pay award. To date we have received no additional funding from Welsh Government.”

Cllr Morris started the questioning by pointing out that recovery periods to get out of a defecit position was based around a three year time period, and for a school with a -£200k starting position that would ‘not be likely’, and asked about the realism of the policy. Cllr Morris also noted that historically any balance over 5% was recouped by Wrexham Council rather than retained, the aim being to encourage schools to spend budgets on provision now rather than store for the proverbial rainy day.

“Can that be relaxed slightly, although it is probably too late? If that threshold is higher some could live off those balances for a while and not end up in a bad situation?”

The Council Officer told the meeting on the former point that deficits higher than 7.5% require Executive Board monitoring, and that will be the ongoing process. Speaking off ‘a considerable number of staff losses and redundancies in number of schools’, the full figures will soon be firmed up as the school years are underway.

It was clear ‘lots’ of temporary contracts are not renewed, and retiring staff are not being replaced, with the context of being ‘under pressure’ from Estyn (education inspectorate) to increase performance.

The 5% cap ‘was relaxed’ effectively ‘turning a blind eye’, and the meeting was told last year Wrexham Council did not withdraw any balances from any schools.

Cllr John McCusker related his recent experiences of local education funding, “We used to have fun years ago to keep under the 5% claw back, but now it is just a battle to survive to keep out deficit. Next year will be dire. My question is, what is happening to stop it from happening?”

“We can’t physically cut another penny. Something has to give.”

Council Leader Mark Pritchard pointed the finger at Cardiff and London: “There has to be appropriate funding for schools. This is not just in Wrexham but across the country, and it is at Cardiff Bay’s door. They need to fund schools appropriately or there will be domino effect. We need more money into schools, it is as blunt as that. We are in the hands of both governments now.”

Cllr Geoff Lowe was keen to praise staff, “I would like to note our thanks and support to teaching staff and other staff who are going through this difficult time, I have nothing but praise for them” adding that the grim assessments could affect future recruitment of teachers and related staff.

Cllr Dana Davies said the projected balances ‘frightened’ her, stating she had ‘huge concerns’, as two thirds of deficits would be based around five secondary schools, “This is a horific situation, and with on-costs being pushed on to schools, to recover £1.2m in five schools will mean there are less teachers in the classrooms.

“That will also be less the variable of redundancies, that also come back on schools, it becomes a revolving door. We need to look at this seriously to get the schools out of that revolving situation.

“Any additional money for education needs to go to into those secondary schools.”

Cllr Pritchard said Wrexham was ‘average’ across Wales, and other local authorities were in a worse position, “The bluntness is I suggest you make representations to AM’s and MP’s to make sure there is appropriate school funding.”

Cllr Davies pointed out she has had meetings and there is ‘an MP meeting’ very shortly.

With a sombre mood and lack of questions, the Chair of the meeting Cllr John Pritchard effectively offered his sympathies to the education officer, “I hope things get better, you have our sympathy.”

Following the meeting we wrote about under the title of “Another shambolic end to a Scrutiny meeting at Wrexham Council” councillors now have to form up their own recommendations rather than just nodding through ones created by officers, or default templates.

This proved problematic as Cllr Benbow-Jones wanted them to capture the report being ‘horrendous and frightening’, and although councillors felt they were ‘keeping a watching brief’ the context of the budgetary contents was out of their control but referenced.

The report itself was finally officially ‘noted’ by councillors.

The full report can be read in this PDF where the below table is sourced from.