Southwark schools in financial difficulty - Dog Kennel Hill?

[legalalien]

Just flicking through documents on the Southwark website and cam across this Appendix to the internal audit report on the agenda for an upcoming audit committee meeting.

https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s101348/Internal%20Audit%20and%20Anti%20Fraud%20Progress%20Report%20September%202021%20-%20Appendix%202.pdf

Audits of schools happen in the normal course but

?Due to the number of schools facing financial difficulties, which present a significant risk to the school and local authority, for a temporary period, BDO LLP as the Council?s internal auditors, were asked to refocus attention onto the schools budget and school financial strategy.?

The report deals with six schools selected by the director for education because of concerns about financial management, including Dog Kennel Hill, slightly worrying it has an overall deficit of around ?570k (and is amber /red on all its ratings). St Francesca Cabrini is also on the list but fares better, problem there seems to be a falling roll.

The report goes on to say that

?We are conducting a separate review regarding the Council?s departmental response to schools in financial difficulties. This will directly address the findings and issues raised in the six reports and determine the appropriate processes by which the Council can support these schools.?

I don?t think I?ve seen much about this in news / general council reports, thought it worth flagging up as very few members of the public are going to bother looking at Appendix 2 of a Council internal report which doesn?t mention the word ?schools? on the website link...

[Ossito]

Interesting and concerning. I have noticed that quite a few schools around Southwark have posters advertising that they Have places available. This would suggest falling rolls which would affect income.

[Jules-and-Boo]

Schools have had their money cut, it?s no surprise they are running a deficit.

[legalalien]

Yes there are various references to falling rolls scattered through documents. This months capital monitoring report says this:

?The overall context is that there is spare capacity in the primary sector (spread unequally across the borough) because of falling rolls relating to a reduced birth rate, exasperated by Covid-19 and a slowdown in growth in the secondary sector. Opportunities are being explored for rationalisation of buildings to make the best use of existing assets to reduce running costs for schools. There is also pressure to increase pupil places for children with special needs, which is a national issue for all education authorities. The school expansion projects have now been successfully handed over with Charter School East Dulwich being the only key remaining project currently onsite. This includes the sixth form centre and resource base with a targeted completion date of September 2022.

54. The main works on Rotherhithe School are progressing well, and target completion and decant into the new school is scheduled for December 2021, with demolition of the existing school and landscape works to follow, completing in June 2022. In addition, design work on Riverside Primary School is underway to re-provide defective early years classrooms, dining and safe access into the school, with work anticipated to start on site in 2022. Both Riverside and Beormund may need additional capital investment to complete the projects. These projects are being evaluated and will be brought forward if recommended by officers.

55. Any proposals to rationalise the supply of school places to ensure schools can operate their buildings economically may require capital investment from 2022-23. The potential need for any future investment will be brought to a future Cabinet assembly as appropriate.?

There is a general point about central funding, no doubt, but this specific audit reports deals with specific problems at the two River Hill Federation schools, including the lack of proper budgets and no full time bursar for a 15 month period, as I read it there are some problems separate from overall funding formula.

[first mate]

Am I missing something? The recent narrative has been about a desperate need for new schools because of rising population? Hence knocking down an old hospital and building a new school(Charter), a new primary on Lordship Lane (Harris) and so on. How does that square with, presumably, not enough children applying for pre-existing schools?

[legalalien]

My interpretation is that Southwark (and possibly other councils in London) got the forecasts a bit wrong, no idea of the whys and hows but all the councillors seem very coy when the issue comes up in council meetings. Of course it?s possible that demand is rising in some parts of the borough and falling in others due to changing demographics / development in some areas (for example where estates have been replaced by new developments with a higher proportion of investment properties/ air B and B etc. Or maybe more people are escaping to the country?

[heartblock]

Southwark calculated incorrectly - who would have thought! So they have too many spaces as they over-estimated. They are not great at calculations, statistics and counting it seems.

[first mate]

Well something does not add up. Demand for social housing is rising, so much so there are plans to infill and build on green land, but demand for school places is dropping? Go figure?

[heartblock]

Well - when one allows degeneration as an excuse to demolish council estates, then splits up friends and families to enable a sell-off to a private property developer..who then makes millions while failing to deliver social housing at the same rental, in the number required (so a huge reduction) and then one is still a Councillor, while being given a very nice job - thank-you - with a property lobby company or one of the property developers...possibly one's mind is diverted from actually being able to count?

[Ossito]

I don?t think it is a simple as Southwark getting their sums wrong. The last few Year 6s have been bulge years and the mew Charter was designed to meet (in part at least) this demand. The delays in finishing the build has meant that they will only be at full capacity as these bulges have already moved into secondary school. I believe that is why there has been so much pressure / competition for secondary places in the last few years.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Brexit and COVID has meant that a lot of people have emigrated out of London: some to rural UK and some overseas. Very many of the EU workers were also the part of the population that have primary age kids - 20-40 years old.

NB also the shambles of academies: they get money from the council, the council has no control over their operations (no bursar? Seriously?), and when it goes tits up, the council has to clean up the mess.

[mrwb]

Depopulation of London likely a factor here.

Seems a few kids left my sons school year and no new starters this term. Guess that is a theme across Southwark and London generally.

[Ossito]

COVID movement may have exacerbated it but the trend has been known for some time. The report below from 2017 projected a surplus of primary places in Dulwich - page 11/12.

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/assets/attach/11223/SP301-Southwark-Primary-and-Secondary-School-Place-Planning-Strategy-update-2017-.pdf

[Sally Eva]

Possibly caused by different funding streams. Charter via government academy funding and DKH via the local authority. So no one thinking about how many places are needed and planning for them.

loads of EU people have gone home because of Brexit etc

[alex_b]

There are I think three overlapping trends. There was a baby boom 10-12 years ago, this is the cause of the bulge classes in the top end of primary schools and prompted a number of new primaries and secondaries to open, this boom was perhaps less sustained than expected. Brexit cased a depopulation of European families from the UK both in the immediate aftermath of the vote and again in 2020 (anecdotally my son?s class lost a number of kids with European parents). Then COVID caused another wave of migration this time from London to the country, again my son?s year lost 10% ish of the kids (5-6 out of 60) since 2020. Presumably from September 2022 things will settle down a bit.

[tomskip]

At least Southwark Council seem to be contemplating giving some support. When Forest Hill School was in financial difficulty a few years ago, Lewisham Council refused to budge - even on re-negotiating the ruinous PFI contract for the school building. Staff had to be made redundant and in an arguably illegal way, Lewisham refused to pay the redundancies so that those too had to come out of the much reduced school budget! That's why there were strikes and demos there a few years ago. Hats off to Mr Sullivan for somehow steering the school through all that.

[legalalien]

I?ll confess that I?ve never given much thought to what happens with an insolvent academy and who is/ becomes responsible for what. I?ll google it but if anyone has a summary do post it.

[legalalien]

For the curious out there, there?s a fascinating government tool online where you can do a financial benchmarking of specific schools and see how much local schools receive and spend, broken down into detailed categories, and either on a total, per pupil etc basis.

https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/BenchmarkCharts

I found it interesting.

[Ossito]

Given that most are limited companies and registered charities, I assume that normal insolvency arrangements would apply. I assume that the Local Authority would retain some degree of responsibility for putting in place contingency arrangements (maybe / perhaps???). I guess it?s one of those questions everybody hopes will never need to be planned for.

[legalalien]

Confirmation of falling pupil numbers in this report for the upcoming education scrutiny committee meeting, more detail to be produced for Cabinet meeting in October.

https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s101594/Report_Pupil%20Places%20Southwark.pdf.

There are falls across most parts of the borough apparently.

Interesting that council can?t require academies to reduce their pupil admission numbers, which must make planning / trying to even out numbers across schools more difficult.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Population of London has dropped for the first time in 30 years, driven by Brexit and the pandemic: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/07/london-population-decline-first-time-since-1988-report-covid-home-working

[legalalien]

I think it says ?could drop? rather than ?has dropped?, but wouldn?t be surprised. I guess the census results will tell us all. Think they come out next March?

ahrahrah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Population of London has dropped for the first

> time in 30 years, driven by Brexit and the

> pandemic:

> https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/07/lo

> ndon-population-decline-first-time-since-1988-repo

> rt-covid-home-working

[Poppy2017]

I am a teacher in a Southwark school. Falling rolls is definitely a factor. It also doesn?t help when the DFE insists on changes. Most recently schools now have to buy into government approved phonics schemes. These schemes require new reading books to match. Our schools has just had to fork out ?20k on this!

[tiddles]

And I bet it is a friend of Tory govt minister who owns the company producing the books?.

[ianr]

Make the bet then.