Yesterday afternoon, City Councillors decided on a funding plan for Education that will make the most of Government Standards Funds and not cut into Individual Schools Budgets.

The decision was made at a joint meeting of the Education and Cultural Affairs Policy Co-ordinating Committee and the Educational Excellence Policy Team, which was held to consider Education Services Spending and the Standards Fund from 1999 to 2000.

So that the City Council is able to access £7.6m in Standards Fund money in 99/2000 the City Council needs to provide matched funding of around £3.21 million. This meant finding an additional £1.15 million in order to get the maximum funding.

As a result of the Policies, Priorities and Resources review Education Services was awarded an additional £0.5 million – leaving a £650,000 resources ‘gap’.

Four options to deal with the problem were put forward at the meeting, and the final decision was to provide a temporary loan of £450,000, allowing the Standards Fund to be drawn down while a strategic review of the service is carried out. The loan, which will be paid back over the next two years, means that there will be no cuts to the Individual Schools Budget.

The remaining £200,000 will be found within the department by careful ‘phasing in’ of PPR money across the service.

Councillor George Duggins, Co-ordinator of the City’s Education and Cultural Affairs Policy Co-ordinating Committee says;

"I am delighted that as a result of work carried out by my councillor and officer colleagues we have been able to protect the Individual Schools Budgets. We never has any specific proposal about how we were to deal with this situation. We were looking at the prospect of resourcing part of our Standards Fund contribution through Individual Schools Budgets but that was only one option – and it was never the only option. What we have done is provide a holding situation to protect future school budgets in lieu of strategic reviews."