Agenda item

To receive a report by the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform and the Corporate Director for Education and Young People's Services which asks the Committee to consider and endorse, or make recommendations to the Cabinet Member on the decision to authorise the Corporate Director to issue a public notice, allocate funding from the Education and Young People’s Service Capital budget for accommodation works, authorise the Director of Infrastructure in consultation with the General Counsel to enter into any necessary contracts/ agreements on behalf of the County Council; and authorise the Director of Infrastructure to be the nominated Authority Representative within the relevant agreements and to enter into variations as envisaged under the contracts.

Ms M White, Area Education Officer, East Kent, and Mr K Abbott, Director of Education Planning and Access, were in attendance for this item.

1.            Ms White introduced the report and advised the committee that, although the consultation process had not yet finished, twenty replies had been received.  These had been mostly from parents and staff and all but two had been in support of the proposed changes.  At the time of drafting the report, the estimated costs of the accommodation works had not been known, but the committee was advised that these had now been confirmed as £30,000 in total. Financial analysis of the boarding provision had demonstrated that the school would require a minimum of twelve young people in fortnightly boarding at any one time in order to make it financially sustainable. There were four young people currently in the fortnightly boarding provision. Two of these would be moving into adult provisions at the end of this academic year and two would need alternative fortnightly provision. Specialist Children’s Services and Strategic Commissioning were currently undertaking an impact analysis on the removal of the fortnightly boarding provision. This was not yet completed but would be completed in order to inform the key decision to be taken by the Cabinet Member.

2.            Ms White responded to comments and questions from Members, as follows:-

a)    the school and local authority were working with the two young people directly affected, their families and social workers in order to secure appropriate alternative provision. Detailed information on the circumstances of the two families involved was not available for the meeting but many of the families of young people attending Stone Bay lived locally or had moved locally to be nearer to their children. If this proved to be the case in relation to the two young people involved, a move out of the area could impact on the families, should they wish to move again to be near their children;

b)    in response to concern that some younger pupils might be distressed by sharing school premises with much older pupils, Ms White advised that learning areas and playtime/social areas would be separate, and access to them managed or staggered when required. The school had expertise in identifying and responding to individual pupils’ needs and the current proposal would allow it to develop this further for Key Stage 2 pupils as a specialism. Parents had welcomed the extension of the age range; and

c)    the few redundancies which would arise from the proposed changes were to non-teaching posts only, related to the weekend boarding facility.

3.            RESOLVED that, subject to the addition of the costs of the accommodation works, now confirmed as £30,000, and to the completion of the impact analysis of the proposed changes to the boarding model, set out above, the decision proposed to be taken by the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform, to:

a)            authorise the Corporate Director of Education and Young People's Services to issue a Public Notice to:

                             i.change the age range of the school from 11-19 years to 8-19 years

                            ii.increase the designated number of the school from 66 to 80; and

                           iii.change the residential placements from fortnightly to weekly boarding, Monday to Thursday, term time only, the maximum number of residential places to be 30;

b)            allocate funding of £30,000 from the Education and Young People’s Service Capital budget for the accommodation works; 

c)            authorise the Director of Infrastructure, in consultation with General Counsel, to enter into any necessary contracts/agreements on behalf of the County Council; and

d)            authorise the Director of Infrastructure to be the nominated authority representative within the relevant agreements and to enter into variations, as envisaged under the contracts, variations to contract value to be no more than 10% above the capital funding agreed by the Cabinet Member without requiring a new key decision,

be endorsed.

4.            Should objections, not already considered by the Cabinet Member when taking this decision, be received during the public notice period, a separate decision will be required in order to continue the proposal in order to allow for proper consideration of the points raised.

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