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MEETING OF THE WORCESTERSHIRE SCHOOLS FORUM (WSF) Friday 8th October 2010 at 2.00pm in the Council Chamber County Hall *PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF ROOM* A G E N D A 1. Apologies 2. Minutes of the Last Meeting 8th July 2010 (attached – blue) 3. Matters Arising 4. Any Other Business 5. Schools' Broadband and Harnessing Technology Grant (HTG) Issues (attached – green) (Dave Thomson in attendance for this item) 6. School Balances Update (attached – yellow) 7. Early Years Funding Update (attached – pink) 8. Results of the June 2010 Consultation on the Future Distribution of School Funding (attached – white) 9. Consultation on School Funding 2011-12: Introducing a Pupil Premium Colin Weeden a) Consultation Details (attached – blue) Programme Lead: b) Draft Response (attached – green) Policy and Transformation 10. Consultation on the School Finance (England) Children's Services Regulations 2011 (attached – yellow) PO Box 73 County Hall 11. Academy Issues Spetchley Road a) Current Position Update (attached – pink) Worcester WR5 2YA b) Further Funding Issues (attached – white) Tel 01905 766342 12. Section 251 Local Authority Fax 01905 766156 Minicom 01905 766399 Benchmarking 2010/11 (attached – blue) DX 29941 Worcester 2 E-mail [email protected] 13. Free Schools Update (attached – green) Date of Next Meeting: Friday 10th December 2010 at 2pm, Kidderminster Room, County Hall Please pass apologies to Andy McHale who can be contacted on Tel 01905 766285, fax 01905 766156 or e-mail [email protected] AGENDA ITEM 5 WORCESTERSHIRE SCHOOLS FORUM 8th OCTOBER 2010 REPORT TO THE WORCESTERSHIRE SCHOOLS FORUM (WSF) SCHOOLS' BROADBAND AND HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY GRANT (HTG) ISSUES 1. PURPOSE 1.1 To discuss with the WSF future issues relating to the above ICT areas. 1.2 To request the WSF to consider options on future funding issues. 2. BACKGROUND 2.1 The WSF were advised at its last meeting in July 2010 of the issues relating o the withdraw by the DfE of 50% of the HTG during 2010/11. 2.2 As well as affecting the ICT plans of schools the WSF were advised that the reduction equally applied to the centrally retained element of the HTG. This significantly affects the LA's planned programme to maintaining the ICT infrastructures including the Broadband network. 2.3 The WSF requested that Dave Thomson be invited to the October 2010 meeting to discuss the issues. 3. BROADBAND ISSUES 3.1 Funding Background (a) Prior to April 2008, the LA was allowed to retain 100% of the various Broadband related grants (NGFL, Broadband & National Digital Infrastructure) in order to establish Worcestershire's Wide Area Network (Networcs). The minimum requirement was for connections of 8Mb to High Schools and 2Mb to Primary Schools. Assessment of the cost benefits and demand growth indicated that a fully fibre-optic based Network would be more cost effective in the long term. This has proven to be the case as most schools would have exceeded the lower performance standards by 2010. (b) Since 2001, a combination of LA and government funding of at least £4 million has been provided to establish the Schools Broadband infrastructure. This level of capital funding is unlikely to be available in the future and therefore careful consideration of how best to sustain the Broadband provision has underpinned the following analysis. (c) The WSF are reminded that the availability of grant has meant that the Service Level Agreement (SLA) charge for Schools Broadband has remained the same since it was established in 2004, with only one inflationary increase in the most recent SLA for 2010/11. 3.2 Current Position (a) The Broadband budget consists of capital and revenue elements. The historic DSG match funding and SLA charges to schools funds the BT revenue costs and the HTG funds the relevant capital items. Much of the capital expenditure has been used in establishing school connections, as these are acceptable capital expenditure under the grant rules. Such capital expenditure has depended on individual school locations and the availability of BT services in the area and therefore without the HTG, such connections to schools would not have been possible. (b) External scrutiny of the Broadband cost model and design over the summer of 2010 was undertaken by Jon Hunt (Senior Architect - Connectivity Services) at BECTA. Jon confirmed that the use of funding is as efficient as possible for a rural Authority, where options for suitable standards of connectivity are limited. In addition, Jon confirmed that the network design provides the best possible basis for meeting the steadily increasing demands of bandwidth. (c) In parallel, John Keen (Infrastructure Manager – WCC) has begun a review of Worcestershire's overall infrastructure of the County Council (Schools, Council, Districts, Health-NHS) with BT to ascertain the best forward plan, in light of BT's emerging 21st Century Network services. (d) Consideration has also been given to alternative provision for equivalent Broadband services which meet the necessary performance and security requirements. It is clear that none of the ADSL (Home Broadband) services from any provider meet the minimum requirements of most schools. They are always shared connections with other Users, are not synchronous and do not provide true performance indicated in their advertised literature (such claims do not take into account distance from the exchange, which for Worcestershire, can be significant). (e) Comparisons of the cost for equivalent services indicates that the Worcestershire broadband offering provides good value for money. Raw connectivity of a 100Mb service (without support, filtering or connections onward to the University network) cost around £150,000 per connection (based on a connection from Worcester to the nearest Point of Presence – POP which is in Birmingham). While this would be higher or lower depending on distance the figure would be much higher than current Broadband costs achieved through aggregation irrespective of the distance from the POP. Other LA's are achieving similar costs to that achieved in Worcestershire through their own aggregation model although some have not established fibre optic as the basis for the network service and therefore face significant cost to upgrade to fibre from the lower bandwidth connections they originally purchased. (f) There is some potential for reducing costs through BT's new 21CN network service which is just rolling out but again the cost of a 100Mb raw connection would be £25,000 per annum. Only 6 exchanges are ready for this service within Worcestershire at present and the council's infrastructure manager will be keep all connections under review to see if they might benefit from moving to this new infrastructure within the current contract. 3.3 Broadband Budget (a) The current budget model has been developed in light of the reductions in grant and therefore does not include any funding element for development or additional services. It also provides no contingency should a major failure occur on any non-BT but essential services. (b) The Broadband capital budget remains in balance until 2012/13, when a deficit of as much as -£115,000 is envisaged. The Broadband revenue budget is in balance each year, assuming no charges are made by BT for network circuits (schools should be aware that any change to the entry location of their BT broadband service will result in higher charges for that circuit and this will need to be met by the school). (c) The situation after 2012/13 will need to be kept under constant review but figures similar to those above are envisaged. (d) In light of the above analysis and in the absence of any grant funding from government, which seems the most likely outcome, an increase in the £8.77 per pupil charge will be required, to ensure a continuation of the same level of service. 3.4 Future Risks (a) Whilst everything has been done to incorporate all of the elements which go together to create the network there are some possible issues that could affect costs. (b) Access to the internet (as opposed to connectivity within the infrastructure is provided by JaNet (Joint Academic Network – UK Universities infrastructure, as part of the National Educational Network (NEN)). The current contract for this service is fixed until March 2011 with the capability of extending the contract for an additional 12 months without re-procurement. This arrangement is being managed by the 14 West Midlands Authorities which utilise the JaNet service and it is hoped that the continuation of the contract does not alter the agreed charges. It is not possible at this stage to assess the outcome of these negotiations but a commercial BT circuit would cost significantly more than we are able to secure through our partnership with JaNet. 3.5 Recent Developments (a) In the week beginning the 13th September LA officers and others were invited to attend a planning discussion regarding the funding of ICT as part of the coalition government's review of capital funding. The ICT grants and in particular the sustainability of high bandwidth connectivity was at the core of that discussion. (b) LA's have been asked to provide information to aid that discussion. The feeling of the meeting was that there was a recognition of the importance of sustaining fibre broadband services as an aggregated procurement as this route provides significantly higher value for money than could be achieved by individual institutions on their own. No promises were made but it is clear that a spend to save option is not something that would not find support. 3.6 Options for Consideration for the Costs of Broadband 2011-13 Option 1. To increase the charge as per the SLA by inflation only for the period 2011/12 and 2012/13 (i.e.

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