Issue - meetings

Further to Minute 63 (10 November 2015), Councillor Carpenter presented an update report in respect of the various school expansion projects aimed at addressing the demand for places in the Borough.

Councillor Carpenter advised that additional school places would be available from September 2016 in the primary sector at Gascoigne and Eastbrook schools and in the secondary sector at Dagenham Park, Eastbrook, Riverside, Robert Clack and Greatfields schools.  She also referred to the longer-term expansion projects at Barking Abbey, Furze Infants and Warren Junior schools and the new school provision at Lymington Fields site, which was now expected to be delivered as a Free School and, as such, would release the £32m previously provided for in the Council’s Capital Programme. 

The Department for Education (DfE) had allocated approximately £666,000 Devolved Formula Capital funding and £4.65m Maintenance and Modernisation funding for works at maintained Local Authority and Voluntary Aided schools during 2016/17.  Councillor Carpenter advised that the two Borough MPs had raised a number of very important points relating to Barking and Dagenham’s school places and funding pressures during an Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons on 17 March 2016, although disappointingly the Under Secretary of State for Education had failed to address their concerns.

Cabinet Members expressed their appreciation of the work being undertaken to meet the unprecedented demand for additional school places in the Borough, with the Leader commenting that the Council was meeting the challenges head on and helping London to move forward.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Approve the Future Planning Programme to meet Basic Need (including SEN places) 2015 to 2021 (amended April 2016) as set out in section 2 and Appendix A of the report;

(ii)  Approve the inclusion in the Capital Programme of the DfE grant allocations for 2016/17 as detailed in section 3 of the report;

(iii)  Approve the various projects and associated changes to the Capital Programme as set out in sections 5 to 10 and summarised in Section 11 of the report;

(iv)  Delegate authority to the Procurement Board to consider and approve the final procurement strategies for each project, in accordance with the Council’s Contract Rules; and

(v)  Delegate authority to the Corporate Director of Children’s Services, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Education and Schools, the Strategic Director of Finance and Investment and the Director of Law and Governance, to award the respective project contracts.