County Consultative Committee – Minutes

Date: Wednesday 13^th November 2024 15:00

Meeting: County Consultative Committee comprising of Councillors’ and East Sussex Governors’ Forum (ESGF).

Present: Councillor’s Bob Standley (Chair), Peter Pragnell, Chris Collier

Members of the ESGF: Denise Kong

ESCC Officers: Clare Cornford, John Murray, Charlotte Johnstone, Rosie O’Brien (Minutes)

1	Minutes of the previous meeting Cllr Standley welcomed everyone to the meeting. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved with no further comments.
2	Apologies for absence Apologies received by Councillor Belsey & Monica Pell. Apologies were accepted by committee members.
3	Disclosure of interests  No interests declared.
4	Urgent items No items raised.
5	Academy Update Verbal update from JM.   Since the last County Consultative Committee Meeting in July, two schools have confirmed that they will be joining a trust. Robertsbridge Community College will move into the Aquinas Trust. Ringmer Primary School will move into Durrington Multi Academy Trust (MAT). JM noted that the DfE are in the process of making changes to funding schemes for academy conversion and developing trust capacity. We are waiting for more information from the DfE about how they are reshaping this funding. Councillors asked if there was a timescale for this. JM confirmed there is no timescale at this time.
6	LA Gov appointments and governor services update Verbal update from CJ.   Since the last County Consultative Meeting in July, 13 Local Authority Governors were nominated for appointment. All of these were approved within their boards for a 4-year Term of Office. All of these were reapplications. The Governor and Clerking Service has observed the increasing number of complaints across East Sussex Schools. This has been discussed with Councillors in past meetings.   Since the start of Term 1 of the 2024-25 academic year, the Governor and Clerking Service has provided support to 7 schools across East Sussex dealing with complaints. In the last 6 months the team has supported 20 schools dealing with complaints. The team has confirmed that their training offer is being refined to target as many people as possible across East Sussex Schools. It has been refined to include governors, clerks and senior leaders of schools. CJ confirmed that the team will be running SEND training and networking for governors again this academic year, with the first training sessions taking place in Term 2. The Governor and Clerking Service has planned termly topics for the year ahead that have been planned to align with the Excellence for All Vision when incorporated in the Training, Networking and Briefing sessions, as well as any communications with Governors and Clerks. This includes a new Attendance and Inclusion training session that ran in Term 1, and an upcoming forum on the topic of Belonging, which will be delivered by Barry Blakelock, Education Director at the Aquinas Trust. The team will be reaching out to governors for feedback following each of these sessions. Since the Committee last met in July 2024, there have been 40 new governor appointments in East Sussex Maintained Schools. In total, there were 190 new governors appointed in East Sussex Maintained Schools in the 2023-24 academic year. Since the start of September 2024, there have been 3 new clerk inductions provided to clerks at maintained schools. The Locum Clerking Service has also been used this term with East Sussex Locum Clerks supporting 7 meetings across 5 schools in Term 1. The second cohort of the ESCC Certified course for clerks, Excellence in Clerking, started in September 2024. This programme is supporting clerks, predominantly at the start of their clerking career. The team has received positive feedback since the first session. DK asked if the team had an exact number or percentage of the governor vacancies in maintained schools. CJ confirmed it is difficult to determine exact numbers as the team is dependent on each school updating their vacancy information on the database used. CC added that trends can be provided rather than percentage data
7	ESGF Verbal update for councillors.  Verbal update provided by DK on behalf of the ESGF. DK confirmed that governors understand the worries around budgeting in the current climate. Governors are currently wondering what protection there would be for current services specifically around governance and schools. Governors understand the value of the volunteer force and think that the volunteer force is only as strong as Governor Services who are there to support and bolster school governors. ESGF members have attended National Governance Association Networking sessions and have compared East Sussex to other Local Authorities. ESGF members confirmed that ESCC has some of the strongest governance in the country compared to other Local Authorities. This was down to the support provided by Governor Services. Cllr Standley confirmed that there are no current plans to change anything within Governor Services and that this is not an area currently being looked at for cuts.  With a caveat that future circumstances are still unknown as there are significant challenges going forward with the current budget. DK highlighted that there is now a selection of ESGF members attending networking sessions to give other governors the opportunity to ask questions and seek advice, There was recently a networking focused on the governance of federations. The ESGF have been asking governors what they would like to be actioned. An example of this included a Lewes Governor Networking that took place which had a focus on school food and resulted in multiple meetings with Chartwells. This also resulted in workshops and programmes being attended on reducing food waste. This showed the positivity and value brought by governors working together. Cllr Standley agreed that it is important for governors to network with one another. DK highlighted the importance of the Equalities Networking provided by Governor Services and how it has resulted in the ESGF trying to determine how schools can be encouraged to monitor their policies in this area.  It is important to promote core offers such as Excellence for All with school governors, to weave those strands into networking with governors to ensure consistent messages. Cllr Standley expressed that the value of governors is essential to the performance of schools and is core to East Sussex Schools.
8	AOI under item 4 No items raised.
9	Next meeting: The date of the next meeting is Wednesday 19^th March 2025 15:00
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