The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Lincolnshire County Council is considering charging schools for some of the services it provides.
A raft of new and established support services would be chargeable if the proposal goes ahead.
Among the expected benefits are growth in the number of schools and academies aware of and accessing services, an increase of funding into the council and reduction of adminstration and back office costs.
Currently, there are about 70 council services being directly offered to schools, with no consistent formula for recovery of the costs.
A council report says: “In our current economic climate, ensuring the viability and sustainability of services whilst maintaining quality is paramount.”
Among the services currently provided to schools at no cost, but which would become chargeable are:
- road safety awareness lessons for secondary schools
- Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue education programme for Y2/Y6 pupils (with discretion to waive charge in areas of high risk school arson)
- anti-bullying training for staff
- domestic abuse/multi agency risk assessment conference training for staff in schools
- knife crime workshop for students’ workshop
- team building workshop
- sports leadership programmes
New services proposed to be offered and charged for include health and safety service offer to academies, Bikeability for special educational needs pupils, scooterbility and sixth-form cycling training.
Another suggested charge is £6,500 to schools that choose to convert to academy status to cover officer time and legal charges incurred by the council.
The report says: “Schools that choose to convert to become an academy benefit from a financial support grant of £25,000 to pay for the associated conversion costs, which is usually more than the actual cost of conversion to the school.”
So far, 36 per cent of schools (with 61 per cent of the county’s pupils) have converted to academy status. If all schools in Lincolnshire were to do so, the estimated cost of officer time is £1.379m.
The proposal also suggests a single point of access for schools, which would replace the current mixed and confusing method and highlight better the services on offer.
The council’s overview and scrutiny management committee will discuss the proposals today (June 30) and relay its views to the executive which will consider the item at its July 5 meeting.
