Purpose

The Department for Education allocates funding
to the Local Authority each year to help maintain and improve the
condition of school buildings and grounds which continue to operate
as maintained establishments.

Education Support Services recommends that £968,000 is
allocated from the SCA to fund the programme of cyclical
maintenance as listed in Appendix 1.

Investment should be prioritised on keeping school buildings safe
and in good working order by tackling poor building condition,
building compliance, energy efficiency, and health and safety
issues. Throughout the year planned works will be required to
schools. The schools in Appendix 1 have been identified as the next
phase of works for 2024/25 specifically for projects over
£100,000. All individual project costs include a 10%
contingency as per the requirement of the capital appraisal
system.

All unspent contingency will be reinvested to the carry forward
balance for the SCA.

Education Support Services meet regularly with representatives from
Building Services and Strategic Assets and Land Engineering team to
discuss the maintained school sites to agree priority works based
upon condition survey data.

A first phase of cyclical works has already been approved for
2024/25 for projects with individual values below
£100,000.

Content

(1) That, following satisfactory financial
appraisals being completed, and approval obtained from the Section
151 Officer for each of the lifecycle projects listed in Appendix 1
to the report, approval be given to:

i) proceed with the individual programme of works - Appendix 1
(Approval References SCA/2024/015 – SCA/2024/018; and

ii) allocate a total of £968,000 from the School Condition
Allocation reserves to enable the individual works listed in
Appendix 1 to proceed.

(2) that in connection with (1) above, that the following actions
are implemented to reduce any risk to the council in connection
with the programme:

- a corporate Risk Register is maintained and reviewed to ensure
all risks have a responsible officer allocated to them; and

- detailed outcomes are identified to ensure that effective project
monitoring and evaluation of the projects can be
undertaken.