Issue - meetings

This report details the results of the bidding round for capital support for Extended Schools. The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) have awarded new additional capital funding of £1,010,743 over two years to support schools to extend their services, so that all can provide a minimum of  the five core offers by 2010.

Advice of the Advisory Panel:

That the Executive Member:

1. Give approval for the supported bids to go ahead
2. Recommend that all successful bidders undertake to deliver the outcomes described in their bids with their funding allocation
3. Give approval for the conditional bids to go ahead, providing that schools agree to meet the additional conditions relevant to their project.
4. Recommend that projects currently below the line are further developed with Directorate staff and, if a higher score can be achieved and funding is available, these projects come forward for approval in the quarterly Capital Monitoring reports.

Decision of the Executive Member:

RESOLVED: That the advice of the Advisory Panel be accepted and endorsed.

REASON:                  To enable the DfES funding to be spent on appropriate projects within the required timescale, to mitigate the risks of overspending against this cash-limited budget, to ensure that DfES and corporate objectives are fulfilled and to ensure that funding is spent within the time limits and best value is achieved.

Members considered a report that detailed the results of the bidding round for capital support for Extended Schools.

Officers drew Members attention towards the fact that they were going to work with those schools whose bids were not successful in this round to work up to a stronger bid should further funding become available.

Members stressed that it was very important that if an area had several of the same kind of facility then one should not lose out over another. Officers said that they were also seeking sensible community agreements so that premises worked together to the best advantage of everybody.

Members expressed concerns that question 10 (Will the monies be used according to the principles of Best Value) on the proforma at Annex 1 of the report was not very useful as few people were going to answer no to the question and a yes response did not tell one very much. Officers said that further guidelines had been issued with the proforma to stop this from happening.

Advice of the Advisory Panel:

That the Executive Member:

1. Give approval for the supported bids to go ahead
2. Recommend that all successful bidders undertake to deliver the outcomes described in their bids with their funding allocation
3. Give approval for the conditional bids to go ahead, providing that schools agree to meet the additional conditions relevant to their project.
4. Recommend that projects currently below the line are further developed with Directorate staff and, if a higher score can be achieved and funding is available, these projects come forward for approval in the quarterly Capital Monitoring reports.

Decision of the Executive Member:

RESOLVED: That the advice of the Advisory Panel be accepted and endorsed.

REASON:                  To enable the DfES funding to be spent on appropriate projects within the required timescale, to mitigate the risks of overspending against this cash-limited budget, to ensure that DfES and corporate objectives are fulfilled and to ensure that funding is spent within the time limits and best value is achieved.