2022-12-31-accounts

Newcastle Diocesan Education Board Annual Report & Financial Statements Year ended 31 December 2022 Company number - 00480293 Registered charity number - 528076 A large print version is available on request from Mrs E Bell Joint Education Team Church House St John's Terrace Percy Main North Shields Or email: [e-mail]

NEWCASTLE DIOCESAN EDUCATION BOARD TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE NUMBER Wision Statement Dirertors Annual Report Administrative details 13 Independent Auditors Report 15 ststement of Financial ActNities incorporating Income and Expenditure Account 19 Balance Sheet 20 ststement of Cash Flows 21 Notes to the Financial Statements 22

NEWCASTLE DIOCESAN EDUCATION BOARD Vision Statement The Diocese of Newcastle workstogether in education with the Durham DI0￿$e and is committed to the flourishing of all children and young people and the part that education plays in achieving this. We wish to offer the highest quality of education across the North East to ensure each and every child achieves their full potential across all areas of the curriculum whi15t having a lively engagement with the Christian faith within the setting of a Christian community. We wish to ensure clergy are fully equipped to serve their l¢xal Schools. that the church appoints skilled governors who are able to ensure the schwl does the very best it can and that all stsff flourish and develop to their fullest potential.

NEWCASTLE DIOCESAN EDUCATION BOARD DIREcfoRS ANNUAL REPORT The dirertors. who are also trustses under charity law. present their annual report. together with the audited financial statements. for the year ended 31 December 2022. This combined report satisfies the legal requirements for. Directors Report of a charitable company. a Trustees Annual Report under the Charitie5 Att 2011 LEGAL OBJEcrs Newcastle Diocesan Education Board {NDEBI aims to promote, facilitate and assist the work and purFioses of the Church of England in education across the Oiocese of Newcastle and elsewhere. NDEB'S principal objects, set out in the Diocesan Boards of Education Measure. are= The promotion of education in the Diocese. consistent wtth the faith and practice of the Church of England. The promotion of religious education and religious worship in lalll schools. The promotion of Church schools in the Diocese and provision of advice to their Governors. The promotion of co-operation between the Board and bodies concerned in any respect with education in the Diocese. Whist this falls outside of the reporting year, the NDEB Articles were updated by special resolution of the Members in December 2021 leffective from 4 March 2022 following Charity Commission consent) to reflect the Diocesan Boards of Education Measure 2021 and additional objects to those atove set out in the new Articles are:_ To promote or assist in the promotion of children and youth work in the Diocese that 15 consistent with the faith and prartice of the Church. To promote co-operation between itself arKI other persons concerned with children and youth work in the Diocese, and To carry out the functions assigned to the Charity by the Measure. As far as schools are concerned NDE8 is mainly concemed with matters to do with Church of England schools. but as part of the established Church, and its duty to promote education and co-operation between bodies involved in education it also seeks to contribute where it can to the development of all schools especially, but not only, in matters of religious education and collertive worship. The company was formed to provide support for the 49 Church of England schools across the Diocese. The strategic priorities of the company are established by NDEB in communication with Diocesan Synod. Deanery Synod, and the Bishop of Newcastle. To this end. significant time and effort is committed to communication between and with these bodies. as well a5 the National Church of England Education Office. NDEB'S strategy for achieving its objectives is to develop financial strurtures to enable it to provide enough staff and resources to support the Church of England schools in the Diocese. To assist with this NDE8 offers a Partnering Agreement IPA) to Church of England schools in the Diocese.

NEWCASTLE DIOCESAN EDUCATION BOARD The directors are aware of the Charty Commi55ion's guidance on public benefit in The Advoncement of Religionfor the Public Benefit and have had regard to it in their administration of NDEB. The directors believe that, by promoting the work of the Church of England in the Diocese of Newcastle. NDEB helps to promote the whole mission of the Church (pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenicall more effectively. both in the Diocese as a whole and in its individual parishes and schools, and that in doing so it provides a benefit to the public by- Providing facilities for public worship. pastoral care and spiritual. moral and intellectual development. both for its members and for anyone who wishes to benefit frorn what the Church offer5: and Promoting Christian values, and service by members of the Church in and to their communities, to the benefit of individuals arKI s(Kiety as a whole- and Providing a seryice to the whole community. not just the Christian constituency. All children are welcome in the Church of England schools in the diocese. including chiklren of all faiths and none. and Providing schools that are places of education. proselytism. offering opportunities for young people to make the most of their inherent potential, and so make a contribution to the society of which they are a part. Comparisons with national cifsted ratings show that in aggregate the C of E schools in Newcastle Diocese are performing well above national averages. AcfiviTIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE YEAR Natlonal educalion landsope and ifflplications As we move from what some commentators would suggest has been pandemic to endemic we are starting to see the green shoots of starting a 'new nomialiW. As an education funrtion we have seen a shift back to school visits and on site support to our schools and school leaders. Nationally the government is encouraging us to consider the Education White Paper"Opportunity for All" and as a result we used some of the time leading up to the publication of this paper during the pandemic to plan the possible landscape as more Sch￿1$ move towards Academy Status. However, frorn a staffing, recruitment and retention perspective in schoo15 we are Still Seeing an immense challenge to which we are providing ongoing support. The Diocesan Director of Education has worked with the team to ensure schools have had continuous access to support during the last two years and the overwhelming feedback from leaders has been positive. From weekly contart to all of our schools to ensuring the many iterations of the guidance from DfE were appropriately interpreted and shared in a useful executive summary to school Leaders. Our approach to embracing the digital age hos led to an increase in contart with EoverThJrs-ourtermlyonline meetings for Chairs and Ex-officio governors have been incredibly well attended averaging over 70 participants. The Director has now published a Diocesan Academy Strategy Paper as we believe, from the White Paper, that we are working towards full academisation although there is no timescale and no ultimate back-stop as yet. The numbers of Academies continue to rise albett slowly in the Diocese of Newcastle. The Board has also taken seriously its responsibility to support 'tiny and rural school< as they consider their next Steps. To that end we continue to work with Ofsted to create an Annex to the CIF Icommon Inspection Framework) which will support the inspection of 'tiny and rural, schools. Towards the end of this year OFsted have started to undertake rnore Trust Reviews which we believe will morph into MAT Ofsted Inspections. The Board will need to note this artivity and start to prepare a model that supports Trusts to ensure the value they add to the schools in those Trusts is value for money and appropriate support and challenge. The position of the Board this year has remained that changes to school structures must be looked at on a case by case basis in line with government policy where relevant but most importantly in the interests of the children and families that we serve. We continue to work in partnership with our Mixed and Church MATS to support our church schi)ols looking at Trust options.

NEWCASTLE DIOCESAN EDUCATION BOARD As we were concerned last year 50 our con￿rn5 increase this year at the levels of funding maintsinin8 our schools. With the rising costs of utilities and uncertainty over future funding every school is now facing significant funding issues and this is leading to further exploration of shared services across our schools and Trusts. Operations and stsffing The team has continued to evolve in the last twelve months with r￿re consultants joining as we aim to meet the growing demand for khool Improvement. Recruitment has proven to be a thallenge at lower grade5 however. we are working creatively to find solutions with other tearn5 at Church House. We now employ only one RE Advisor 35 one has now retired - we continue to work with the Hild Bede Fund to support this post. We have secured again a further grant for the next twelve months. This will be used to further enhance RE provision in all of ourschools- support Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education"SACRE" across L4's and promote our curriculum / syllabu5 offer. 99% of schools across both Newcastle and Durham Dioceses have bought back into the PA which is a tremendou5 boost having had to raise the cost by IO%. The Diocesan Trust work continues to bring a more substantial income to the Joint Education Team {JETI which ha5 allowed a le55er dependency on reserves throughout the financial year. In the coming year the Dirertor IDDEI will be leaving his post to join Durham and Newcastle Diocesan Learning Trust IDNDLTI. He will be replaced by an interim appointment whi15t the new Bishop of Newcastle is given time to consider the work of the Jtr. Challenges and Achievements We almost have a full contigent of staff with one vacancy in our administrative department which has only been partially filled. With guidance from the Dirertor of Education. trustees are considering how the team could be expended to cope with increasing demands. Challenge and Support work now foms a significant part of our work stream for our standards and effectiveness team5 - there ha5 been a significant increase in demand for school improvement work - the challenge is now recruiting staff to service that demand should we wish to increase capacity. Communication with School leaders including Governors has continued to be more effective than ever. Governor updates and training have been well attended and by virtue of thern being onlirbe we have been able to hold them more regularly. We have also delivered a comprehensive training schedule with a mix of online and in person sessions covering various areas including curriculum sessions. RE training, new governor training and HR updates. 2022 saw our annual conference return Yo Infinty and Beyond" which was attended by over some 150 school leaders. Our Key Note speaker. Rev Richard Coles. was inspirational and highlighted the good work that schools have done and continue to do. Schools in many of our communwties are now actively interested in leaming more about MAT'S and the joint Academy strategry vision paper from the Durham and Newcastle Diocesan Education Boards has set out the means by which this will be achieved. Tiny and rural continues to be a challenge, however. Trusts are working with the Director to support these schools. The team continues to manage the plannin& trainin& delivery and staffing of Ststutory Inspection of Anglitan and Methodist Schools ISIAMSI. A new approach to SIAMS is now in place which mean5 inspectors are allocated by the National Church and QA takes place across Di0￿Se$. The team is preparing for the new SIAMS framework with a conference and training sessions scheduled for the summer term outside of the reporting period. Working with communities We continue to focus on working with communities and look to develop links and partnerships to assist our schools. Examples of this work include the following:_

NEWCASTLE DIOCESAN EDUCATION BOARD We continue to work with schools who are now within our MATS. or wish to join MATS community schools. We work with school cluster groups to support networking and discussion between Church Head Teachers. We have now delivered Understanding Christianity to all church schools and several community schools. Our team have worked in several community schools to support standards and achievements. We are regularly asked by schools to broker service5 for them which are fit for purpose and cost effective. We are working in several locatbons With regards to 'shared leadership. which involves bring communities closer together. We deliver training at events for a115chools including Education Mutual conference and Schools North East Governor conference. We are seen as a partner to our 3 Local Authorities in the Newcastle. North Tyneside and Northumberland area. including Other related partie5 indude The Newcastle DI0￿San Board of Finance INDBFI works closely with NDEB aFKI the two charities are tompanies within the Newtsstle DI￿e$an framework. They share the same registered office and some directors serve on both boards. The Durham Diocesan Board of Finance IDDBF) is a neighbour to the south of Newcastle. NDEB and the DDBF have continued to work closely together and they now jointly ernploy 9 members of staff. A common pool of SIAMS inspectors has been established and joint training for them continues as does in-service training Ilnsetl on religious education and school worship for staff and training for clergy on ways to work with schools. The Church of England Pensions Board. to which NDEB pays retirement benefit contributions for employees. Transactions with the main categories of related parties are identified in appropriate places throughout the financial statements. Where materiality of the transactions merits more detailed disclosure this is given in note 18 to the financial statements. FUTURE PLANS The future of the three tier system in Northumberland continues to be a focus in 2022 as Berwick and the Coquet Partnership continue to be consulted upon and debated by NCC Cabinet. NDEB is working with the schools closelv as part of these processes and how they would manage a change to two tier bearing in mind the lessons learned from Alnwick. The Director continues to be heavily inVo￿ed in all of these consultations and will keep the Board appraised. The work with structures will be ongoing- in particular the impact of a falling birth rate in Northumberland. This will require further consideration with small and rural schools and how they continue to serve the local communitv. Governance will now require further work with regards to joining Trusts- we will also need to consider Ex Officio appointments as the numbers of parishe5 in vacancy rises throughout the Diocese. A continued piece of work will be the school improvement work undertaken by the tearn and how we continue to grow the offer and expand the work of the team into community schools and trusts. This will link to the growth of the Durham and Newcastle Diocesan Learning Trust that is now an option for schools in the Newcastle Diocese. As the DDE moves on next year the Board in conjunction with the Durham Board will have to consider how to continue the effective work of the team with a view to ensuring schools are on a journey to joining effective. strong Trusts.