To approve the proposed expenditure of capital grants for school buildings maintenance works and accessibility improvement works.

That:

a)    The Service Director Education, Skills and Learning be authorised to take all operational decisions necessary to implement the programme of works, and any urgent contingency schemes required, within the approved budget of £3.75m for maintenance, subject to addition to the capital programme by the S151 officer;

b)    The Service Director Education, Skills and Learning be authorised to take all operational decisions necessary to implement the additional programme of works, within the additional approved budget of £2.7m for maintenance;

c)    The Service Director Education, Skills and Learning be authorised to take all operational decisions necessary to implement the accessibility improvement works, within the approved budget of £1m for accessibility;

d)    The Service Director Education, Skills and Learning be authorised to take all operational decisions necessary to vary the programme of works should the amount of funding received from the Department for Education differ from that used to determine the initial programme of works; and

e)    The Corporate Director, Childrens and Young People be authorised to take all operational decisions relating to the award of contracts for the above programmes of work.

1. The maintenance grant supporting building works in schools could be profiled differently. The schemes will be determined based on the most recent condition reports produced for each school. The profile will be produced by the consultants undertaking the update of the condition reports and will be considered extensively by the schools capital investment strategy team, the council’s property services section and the capital strategy consultative group (involving headteachers). The proposed works will address the known priorities.

2. No funding is spent on accessibility improvement 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 disabled child or a child with an education health and care plan to the parent / carer’s 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 adaptations could be considered unreasonable.