To approve the proposed expenditure of capital grants for school building and maintenance works.

The Department for Education provides capital funding to local authorities responsible for schools. This funding includes the Schools Condition Allocation which is intended for the maintenance of community and voluntary controlled schools, and the basic need allocation which is intended for the addition of school places to meet the needs of growing populations.

Herefordshire council has been allocated £1,232,573 Schools Condition Allocation and £1,048,294 basic need allocation.

In addition £651,632 has been allocated to voluntary aided schools in Herefordshire. The council co-ordinates this funding with the diocesan boards of education and school endowment trusts. However the funding is then passed directly from the ESFA to the schools.

The distribution of this funding is determined in accordance with the principles set out in the schools capital investment strategy and is based on regular condition surveys in respect of maintenance, and regular assessments of current and forecast demand for places in respect of basic need.

Appendix 1 provides an overview of the proposed expenditure of maintenance, Basic Need and LCVAP (local authority co-ordinated voluntary aided programme) funding. Appendix 2 provides the details of the schemes being proposed as part of this programme of works.

That:

(a)        The school maintenance schemes as set out in appendices 1 and 2 be approved spending £1m on basic need to provide sufficient high quality places, £1,457k to address maintenance issues and £651k allocated to schemes funded through the Local Authority Co-ordinated Voluntary Aided Programme; and

(b)        Authority is delegated to the interim education and capital manager to take all operational decisions necessary to implement the above recommendations within the approved budgets.

1.          The capital and maintenance grants supporting building works in schools could be profiled differently. The schemes have been determined from the latest available condition reports for each school. The profile has been considered extensively by the schools capital investment strategy team, the council’s property services section, the capital strategy consultative group (involving headteachers), and the LCVAP (local authority co-ordinated voluntary aided programme) group comprising diocesan, arch-diocesan and endowment trust representatives. The proposed works are addressing the known priorities.

2.          Basic need could be allocated to different schools. The priorities have been formulated on the best information and advice available and consulted upon. Basic need allocation is being directed to projects that are clearly adding new capacity.

3.          No funding is spent on maintenance or accessibility works in schools and children are required to attend different schools. There is a statutory process which requires the council to arrange the admission of a child with a disability or an education health and care plan to the parents/carers preferred school, unless it can be shown that to do so would prejudice other children or it would be unreasonable to do so. The excessive financial cost of making the adaptations could be considered unreasonable.