Issue - meetings

(Report by Mr B MacQuarrie, Head of Capital and Infrastructure Support, Ms R Turner, Managing Director and Mrs S Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education)

(1)         The Committee considered a report that provided information on school building maintenance and the arrangements that existed for the prioritisation of projects for inclusion within the capital programme and funding needs.

(2)         The Chairman invited Mr MacQuarrie to introduce the report.  Mr MacQuarrie gave a brief introduction and Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:

(3)         In response to a question by Mr Vye, Mr MacQuarrie explained that the key priority was to keep schools open, safe and dry. Not all the backlog could be attended to in one year although the delivery of major projects over the last few years had made significant progress in reducing the backlog.

(4)         In reply to a question by Mr Brazier about work identified by a legionella survey that had to be funded by a school, Mr MacQuarrie explained that both KCC and schools had responsibility for funding maintenance repairs.

(5)         RESOLVED that:

(a)   the information provided about maintenance spending and that   pressures on this budget were likely to continue for the life of the Medium Term Plan be noted; and

(b)   it be noted that the forthcoming announcements on the size of and arrangements for future capital funding together with the transfer of schools to academy status would have implications for this budget and the position would need to be reviewed.