News and Events > News > Council Report October 2010

ST MARGARET''S SCHOOL COUNCIL LIMITED

 COUNCIL MEETING REPORT

Wednesday 20 October 2010

The Council noted with sorrow the passing of Sister Dorothy, who gave many years of service to the School and the School community, including being a member of School Council for some years. Her funeral at St John's Cathedral was a particularly moving experience. The School will be asked to put a picture of Sister Dorothy on the web site. Her nursing career spanned many decades, and there are many nurses who were very grateful for her generous mentoring.

The Council discussed the upcoming Foundation strategy meeting. The Foundation and the Council are considering the approach the School should take in relation to engendering the spirit of philanthropy that is required by an independent school to be able to provide the level of facilities that are expected. The approach taken by other Schools was discussed. This is a longer term strategic issue that will be considered further in consultation with the Foundation following their strategy meeting.

The ERM (Enterprise Risk Management) software is now being rolled out within the School. This software allows for recording and control of all matters relating to School policies and risk management. For example, all reports of incidents can be recorded on line and all relevant people are automatically notified. Any response is noted, and all incidents can be accessed and analysed according to a series of criteria. All policies are recorded in the software, and automatic reminders of due dates for revision are sent to the person responsible for the policy. When a policy is updated, the former revisions are archived and the new version loaded. This tool is being adopted by many schools and St Margaret's is one of the first to implement it. It will not only save time and paperwork, bringing greater productivity and efficiency, but will also provide a more reliable history relating to any policy and risk issues.

The October Council meeting is the annual budget meeting. The preparation of School budgets begins in July with heads of departments submitting budget requests. These are collated, revised and refined during August and September and in early October there is a special meeting of the Audit and Finance Committee to consider the draft budget. It is then revised as necessary and resubmitted to the regular Audit and Finance committee meeting in the middle of the month. The final budget is then recommended to the Council by the Audit and Finance committee, for consideration at the October meeting. The Council passed the 2011 budget at this meeting. It will now go to a meeting of the Trust for ratification later in November.

The School is then accountable to the Trust for meeting the budget for the following year and must submit quarterly governance and finance statements to the Trust. Examples of these statements are attached. The Council passed the September quarter Compliance Statements at the October meeting for forwarding to the Trust for its November meeting.

Important issues from the Building and Planning committee centred around works to be carried out over the Christmas holidays. These included the new boarding house lift which is to be installed in December and the continuation of the sewer upgrade. The section from Lapraik Street to the Loft was done last year and the section from Eton Court to the Loft is scheduled for this year. The draft Master Plan will be further discussed with the new Principal when she starts next year.

This meeting the Council shared a meal with the Senior Executive team, comprising:
Susan Shaw
Toni Williams
Tony Cartmel
Nicki Colledge
Mary Surtees
Marcia Brumpton
Jenny Lishman
Ailsa Crockett
Nicole Devlin

Angela Drysdale, Di Murphy and Lesa Fowler were apologies.

Mr Joe Gibson
Chair of Council

Full Council Report can be viewed here.