Bromley's Schools Forum is considering changes to its membership rules to address recruitment challenges and ensure broader representation. The proposed changes aim to address the difficulty in recruiting members due to the current constitution being too narrow.

The Schools Forum met on Thursday 10 July 2025, to discuss proposed changes to its constitution, which aims to make it easier to recruit and retain members. According to the report, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit members to the forum and that the current constitution is too narrow.

The proposals include:

  • Merging head teacher and governor/trustee positions into one for school membership, providing more flexibility in appointments.
  • Allowing up to two school members from a particular school or academy trust, increasing membership options without disproportionate influence. The report stated that this proposal will have the impact of opening up membership whilst still ensuring that no particular school/trust has disproportionate influence at the Forum.
  • Reducing the non-school membership cohort from five to four by removing the Joint Teacher Liaison member, a position that has been vacant for several years and is not a statutory role. The report noted that removing this position will assist in the Forum remaining quorate.

The report stated that these changes would maintain school membership at 75%, exceeding the Department for Education's (DfE) guidance of two-thirds.

The Schools Forum was asked to comment on the report before it is submitted to the Children, Education and Families Policy Development and Scrutiny Committee (CEF PDS) for approval. The constitution will be agreed at the next CEF PDS (11th September 2025) where any comments from the Forum will be considered.

The agenda for the meeting also included discussions on the Schools Finance Regulations 2025, the CEF Provisional Outturn Report 2024/25, and spending by maintained schools in 2024-25. The Schools Forum was asked to note the CEF Provisional Outturn Report 2024/25, which provides an extract of the Children, Education and Families (CEF) Portfolio 2024/25 outturn position as reported to the Executive of the Council on 21 May 2025. The Schools Finance Regulations 2025, which were last updated in 2020 and are therefore due a review, were also scheduled to be discussed. The Schools Forum was scheduled to consider a report providing information on all revenue and capital balances held by primary, secondary and special maintained schools as at 31 March 2025, and also provides a comparison to the balances held at the same time in the previous year.