Issue - meetings

To receive a report by the Corporate Director for Education and Young People’s Services to consider and endorse or make recommendations to the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform.

1.            The Area Education Officer, East Kent, Mrs White and the Director of Education Planning and Access, Mr Abbott, introduced a report that gave details on the outcome of the public consultation on the proposal to permanently expand Halfway Houses (Foundation) Primary School from 2FE to 3FE and the Governing Body’s decision to expand the school, pending approval by the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform to support this financially as set out in the recommendation of the report.

2.            The Cabinet Committee noted that Halfway Houses had already taken additional pupils on a temporary basis into its current school buildings. As the school is now being rebuilt under Priority School Build 1 on the former Danley site, this was an opportunity to expand the school by an additional form of entry.  A consultation was carried out and 136 written responses were received by the governing body: 119 respondents supported the proposal; 6 objected to the proposal and 11 respondents were undecided.  Mrs White advised that the objections received were mainly regarding the school becoming too large.  In response parents were given the assurance that the structure and family atmosphere of the primary school would not be lost as the school was already a third of the way to the proposed cohort.

3.            RESOLVED that the  Education and Young People’s Services Cabinet Committee endorsed the decision to be taken by the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform to:

a)     allocate £1,384,353.56 from the Education and Young People’s Services Capital Budget, being Kent County Council’s contribution towards the priority school building scheme which has been agreed with the Education Funding Agency (EFA), subject to any necessary additional works or necessary variations.

b)     The Corporate Director for Education and Young People’s Services in consultation with the Cabinet for Education and Health Reform be authorised to negotiate with the EFA as to the necessity and cost of any additional work or variations identified, to ensure that any further contribution is minimised.  Any agreements will not exceed current approved financial limits; and

c)      The Executive Scheme of Delegation for Officers set out in Appendix 2 Part 4 of the Constitution (and the directorate schemes of sub-delegation made thereunder) provides the governance pathway for the implementation of this decision by officers. In this instance the Director of Property and Infrastructure Support is expected to be the nominated Authority Representative within the relevant agreements and to enter into variations as envisaged under the contracts.