None received

In accordance with Part 2C Paragraph 9.3 of the Royal Borough Constitution,  the Mayor had agreed to accept the following urgent public questions:

1)    Question submitted by David Rooney, Executive Principal of Lowbrook Academy to Councillor N.  Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

Having preferred the option of speaking freely, I respect Council’s decision to allow questions only and therefore hope the answers to these questions bring clarification to parents and form part of the public record. Lowbrook is an outstanding school with a proud record of achievement. It puts children and community first and we implore the council to do the same.

The Governors and Parents are left wondering why the council believed that £1.6 million was enough to deliver the expansion scheme when the school clearly demonstrated through six current tenders from July 2016, QS estimations, executive architectural advice and national benchmarks that this figure was well below what was required?

Councillor N. Airey responded that last summer the Council and the Academy negotiated on the scope and scale of an expansion at Lowbrook Academy.  For the first time the negotiation was with an Academy that was seeking full control of the project instead of the local authority undertaking the detailed design work. The specification at this point was for some immediate internal modelling, four classrooms, 167 square meters of additional hall space and a staff room.  The school put forward estimates as described in the region of £1,925,000 while the Council’s team estimated a budget of £1,600,000 using the methodology which was regularly used for budget setting on Education projects and was calibrated with experience of tenders that come back.

On that basis the Council offered £1,600,000 to the Academy which was accepted following a discussion with the governing body.  Within that meeting the council officer noted the difference in estimates and indicated that that the difference would not prevent the project from completing.  The Council report of June 2017 which approved the £1,600,000 also noted a financial risk of £300,000 on the tendering prices; a risk that the Borough was willing to carry, and as such the school was encouraged to proceed with the existing budget.

It was expected that at the tender response stage, if it came back above the approved budget, there would be another decision for the Council.  This was similar to the process the Council uses for education capital schemes where it was in control and allows for market variation within an approved capital programme.

Mr Rooney confirmed that he did not have a supplementary question.

2)    Question submitted by David Rooney, Executive Principal of Lowbrook Academy to Councillor N.  Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

The engineering difficulty regarding the hall extension was identified within the first month of the scheme’s development. The project proceeded with full support from all members of the steering group including a Borough Officer. The rationale was clear and based around financial and practical assumptions from our Executive Architect. The relocation of the hall subsequently became an issue 8 months past the design process and after authority had been given for pre-application. Why was this not addressed at the very beginning of the project design instead of after key milestone delivery dates?

Councillor N. Airey responded that on 30 September 2016, the steering group was advised that the option of adding 167 square meters to the existing hall would be mechanically complex, structurally risky and the implementation would be impractical for the school operation, all of which would add to the cost.  The Academy proposed a second hall space of 290 square meters to create a space large enough for the whole school to meet, something that she understood to be a so called “red line” for the school on this project. 

The minutes of that steering group meeting show that the preferred design was not turned down but supported as a direction of travel with section 4.4 noting the requirement for further funding.  Through the autumn, work was undertaken to secure additional funding: the Academy approached the Education Funding Agency and the local authority looked at sport hall grant opportunities and section 106 sources, but none enabled additional capital to be secured.

Members had asked her about the fairness of the hall space in comparison to the provision in other schools.  The national guidance for school buildings called Building Bulletin 103 set a number of parameters for primary school hall space in a two-form entry school. The guidance recognised the complexity of different school sites; some schools had a single space, large or small; some had two spaces and some had a real mix. 

The council did not intend to tell the Academy what it needed for the good of the pupils and therefore the issue for the Council was cost, and the council could not make that decision without recognising that the proposal was for a hall that was 123 sqm larger than the space agreed in the initial funding estimates.  It was right therefore that Members had been advised on the range and typical arrangements for hall spaces in comparable schools within Maidenhead.

By way of a supplementary question, Mr Rooney commented that the school had been led to believe that the additional funding shortage had been agreed. He asked for an explanation as to why the school was led to believe that was the case.

Councillor N. Airey responded that as further borrowing would have been required, an internal process was followed. The letter sent by the Director of Children’s Services stated it was going forward but not that it had been formally approved. The issue was due to come to Council in April 2017 but due to the announcement of the General Election and purdah it had been deferred. She did not believe the communication had explicitly stated that the funding had been agreed, but that it was in process, and would be put to Council.

3)    Question submitted by Dominique Du Pré, Chair of Governors of Lowbrook Academyto Councillor N.  Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

Lowbrook is a school that has moved from a position of near closure to being the highest performing Academy in England. It has been at the forefront of high achievement for over a decade; the first RBWM Academy; a school that has self-funded four high quality classrooms and is consistently over-subscribed as a consequence of this best practice.)

The funding shortage was clearly identified by the Academy and steering group yet we were given full authority to formally progress this build well past key project milestone delivery dates. Why were parents led publically to believe the project viable and the school required to enter into a renegotiation process?

Councillor N. Airey respondedthat the development of the scheme using the Design and Build approach required the development of a specification to the level of detail that contractors could make legitimate offers on.  The council had previously allocated £1,600,000 on this project and, in line with the agreement that the Academy were leading, it was right that the Council authorised the project to move forward to the point where there was a specific price for delivery.  At that point it would have been possible to make a final decision on the actual capital cost and there would have been more certainty about the viability of the scheme.

As she had said in a previous answer, Members had asked her about the hall and the fact that the proposed 123 square meter additional space was more than agreed at the outset.  It was therefore the reason the decision had been brought back to council. It was only right for the council to explore how the Academy might contribute to the scheme in recognition of the additional space in the design compared to the original agreement.

Ms Du Pré confirmed that she did not have a supplementary question.

4)    Question submitted by Dominique Du Pré, Chair of Governors of Lowbrook Academyto Councillor N.  Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

Young families move from substantial distances into our catchment, at a premium, to secure their children a place at this outstanding school. The issue of over-subscription is not new and historically we have taken bulge classes at your request and at our own will so as to meet the needs of this community.

Why was the process of a conscience/free vote used in this expansion project and why is this project often referred to as controversial when it is in the Conservative’s policy and to our knowledge in principal had already been agreed?  

Councillor N. Airey respondedthat the expansion of Lowbrook Academy was not an expansion to provide sufficient school places within the Borough as there were 70 surplus places for the coming year at a range of other schools in Maidenhead. It was therefore not a decision to allocate Government funding to meet the Council’s statutory duty. That duty was already amply met. It was however an expansion to support a particular community in getting their children into their first choice school and to prioritise limited local resources towards this project potentially at the expense of others. The administration’s manifesto included commitments to expand Good and Outstanding schools and to increase the number of such schools.  The decision to expand Lowbrook clearly aligned with the former of these commitments.  Given the range of questions she had heard from Members, and she highlighted that she did not speak on behalf of all 57 councillors, but in her capacity as Lead Member, she could see that some might view the decision as controversial for a number of reasons:

1.    Central government policy was to provide funding for Academies to expand via the Education Funding Agency’s Condition Improvement Fund, but they had declined.

2.    Some schools that were not as successful as Lowbrook argued that investment should go to them if Members were making local decisions

3.    It was typical of the admissions system nationally that about 15% of parents did not secure their first preference of school and found themselves in the same position as the 30 families who were planning for 60 places at Lowbrook.  The borough figures matched the national figures almost exactly in this respect. The 16 living in the catchment area and the nine with siblings and living outside the catchment area had been offered places in Good or Outstanding schools with only four being offered a school that was not on their preference list.

So the choice to invest a further £775,000 into the expansion may well be seen as controversial for the reasons highlighted.  It was also clear that it is not a straight policy decision as the decision had to be weighed up in light of local opportunities and costs; this was the role of the democratically elected councillors and the use of a Free Vote for those affiliated to the administration was wholly appropriate.

Ms Du Pré confirmed that she did not have a supplementary question.

5)    Question submitted by James Spiteri, Parent Governor at Lowbrook Academy to Councillor N.  Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

Expanding the highest performing school in England clearly meets local and central government policy. In fact, the expansion of Lowbrook was publically endorsed by the Prime Minister on her website and in her election communications during her campaign. Expanding outstanding academies remains a high priority. Why do members of the Conservative Council not believe they should be expanding outstanding academies such as ours when there is a clear policy from Central Government to convert all schools to academy status and there are many examples in Windsor and Maidenhead where expansion projects in academies are currently being undertaken (e.g. Dedworth Middle School, Windsor Boys, Furze Platt Senior)?

Councillor N. Airey respondedthat the administration had no objection to expanding outstanding academies; indeed it was committed to expanding good and outstanding schools of any type.  However the council’s statutory duty was to fund that work if there was a clear shortage of places in the wider area and that was why it was funding the secondary schools mentioned, because it knew that the spaces would be needed to accommodate pupils already in the primary system.

In their document “Guide to forecasting pupil numbers in school place planning” the Department for Education said “We expect local authorities to forecast demand for school places based on groups of schools (planning areas) that reflect local geography, reasonable travel distances and patterns of supply and demand. For some this could be at local authority level.”  That was not just within the catchment area of a single school and the council considered the Maidenhead area to be a standalone area for primary school planning. There were sufficient places in the local area without this expansion of Lowbrook Academy, with 70 free places for September 2017 available as of the previous week.

She appreciated that this did not help the families who wanted to attend the Academy now, as the school had said they would not take the additional 30 places in September until they had certainty about the space to accommodate these pupils, which the council had been told could only occur once both financial certainty and planning permission had been granted, which was at the earliest likely to be around Christmas time. Once again it emphasised that this was a local decision about the cost/value of the opportunity, not a policy decision about a type of school the council was interested in expanding.

Mr Spiteri confirmed that he did not have a supplementary question.

6)    Question submitted by James Spiteri, Parent Governor at Lowbrook Academy to Councillor N.  Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services

Due to my professional qualifications as a Chartered Architect, I was invited to become a Governor at the School with a view to using my extensive architectural knowledge to help oversee the build design and value engineer this project. Uncertainty and lack of commitment will only escalate

My current dealings in this market indicate higher inflationary costs due to the falling value of the pound and market conditions. You must commit to this project and not risk further delays due to economic forces which are out of the school’s and RBWM control so why are conditions in this paper being imposed that do not align with conventional design and build projects or any other school builds identifiable in RBWM, in particular in Recommendation item 2 the scheme proceeds no further if the additional budget of £775,000 proves to be insufficient?

Councillor N. Airey responded that there were fluctuating costs in the market place with recent tenders for school build projects being significantly below estimates for the first time in a while.  A view had been taken about the potential cost at current market values and the council was recommending that exact cost be secured rather than continuing to guess and argue about those guesses. This was normal practice in the public sector:  an indicative budget was secured and an allocation made. In this case the recommendation was to increase the allocation from £1,600,000 to £2,425,000 and then permission would be given to seek a contract to deliver, raising the expectation of the bidders.  The final decision was to confirm the award of the tender or stop the process. This meant that the conditions in the paper did align with the Borough’s conventional design and build projects and was the same process used for the secondary school expansion programme; indeed the recommendation on that report from July 2016 stated “To agree the proposed programme of school expansion and delegate responsibility to the Managing Director/Strategic Director, Adults, Children and Health to begin procurement, with the final proposals to be approved by full Council, at a cost of up to £29.6m”.  Those schemes would require Council to agree if any further money was required.

The recommendations in the report were explicit that there were three potential options should £2,425,000 be insufficient:  value engineer the project; allocate more funds or stop the project.  This may be harsh to some and reduce confidence in others however it was prudent to say to Members  “if you support this scheme at £20,625 a place you are not tied to the same decision if it rises significantly further in the future”. The Council was offering an expansion with clear guidelines and not a blank cheque, which was fairer to all schools in the Borough.

By way of a supplementary question, Mr Spiteri asked why, when it was fairly obvious a long time that the money allocated would not be enough, was the school not told to stop?

Councillor N. Airey responded that the council had always been working publically with the expectation of a viable project and wanted the school to continue building as agreed. The Council had put £300,000 into the risk section of the initial report to recognise the school’s estimate.  She added that the Council was working to secure the expansion project and if it had gone over by that amount we would have asked for more capital. From the start the council was willing to carry a further risk above the £1.6m that had been secured in the capital programme.