Issue details

Proposed decision:  

i.             Agree to increase the funding allocated to expand Queen Elizabeth Grammar School from £5million to £5.4m through providing £0.4million additional funding from the Basic Need capital budget.

ii.            Authorise the Director of Infrastructure, Strategic and Corporate Services in consultation with the General Counsel and Director of Education to enter into any necessary contracts / agreements on behalf of the County Council.

iii.          Authorise the Director of Infrastructure, Strategic and Corporate Services to be the nominated     Authority Representative within the relevant agreements and to enter into variations as envisaged under the contracts.

Reason for the decision:

Additional funding of £0.4m is required for the expansion of Queen Elizabeth Grammar school by 1FE from September 2023. Additional costs due to inflation have been identified since the decision to allocate £5M to this project.

The revised project cost is now £5.4milllion. As the revised project cost is more than the ROD of £5m a new ROD is required to authorise the additional funding for this project.

Background:  

The Kent Commissioning Plan has identified the need for additional selective places across the plan period due to population growth and new housing developments in the Faversham and surrounding area. The Kent Commissioning Plan (KCP) (2021-2025) showed a deficit of -30 places for September 2022 and -34 places for September 2023 for the Canterbury and Faversham Selective Planning Group. The revised KCP (2022-2026) indicates additional pressures of -44 places for 2023 with a continues pressure to 2026 with -24 places.

It was agreed to expand Queen Elizabeth Grammar School by 1FE and allocate funding of £5m at the Children, Young People and Education Cabinet Committee on 10 January 2022. (Decision number 21/00115)

Options (other options considered but discarded):

Queen Elizabeth Grammar school is part of the Canterbury and Faversham Selective planning group. There are 4 Grammar schools within this planning group, Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Simon Langton Girls Grammar school, Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys and Barton Court Grammar School. Simon Langton Boys Grammar School has a current expansion build programme and Simon Langton Girls Grammar has just has a PSP rebuild. Barton Court Grammar School is unable to expand on it’s site. For September 2023 it is therefore proposed to permanently expand Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School by 30 places (1FE) to meet the need for additional places in Faversham and the planning area.

How the proposed decision meets the objectives of ‘Increasing Opportunities, Improving Outcomes: Kent County Council’s Strategic Statement (2015-2020)’

This proposal will help to secure our ambition “to ensure that Kent’s young people have access to the education, work and skills opportunities necessary to support Kent business to grow and be increasingly competitive in the national and international economy” as set out in ‘Increasing Opportunities, Improving Outcomes: Kent County Council’s Strategic Statement (2017 - 2022)’.

The Commissioning Plan for Education Provision in Kent 2021-25 identified the need to commission additional capacity in Faversham and Canterbury Selective planning group.