Cabinet considered the report titled Schools Condition Allocation 2023-24.

Councillor Carroll, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Education, Health, Mental Health, & Transformation introduced the report by stating that the government provided funding to the borough to maintain and improve school buildings and grounds. This funding was for voluntary and community-controlled schools only. Cabinet was being asked to approve the projects that were set out within the report over the period 2023-24. This included various endeavours from gutters to radiators and therefore was quite an undertaking in terms of infrastructure.

Lin Ferguson, Executive Director of Children’s Services & Education said that the overall budget was already in the borough's capital programme, but the individual scheme's budgets were shown in appendix D (part 11).The round of schemes would still leave some capital to be allocated this year following the completion of relevant surveys. The recommendation was that the decision for these new projects was delegated to the DCS and Procurement Manager so that they could procure and enter into contracts.

This was proposed by Councillor Carroll and seconded by Councillor Johnson.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That Cabinet noted the report and:

i)               Approved the capital schemes, and their budgets as set out in the appendices for inclusion in the 2023/24 capital programme.

ii)             Delegated approval of a second round of prioritised projects for inclusion in the 2023/24 capital programme to the Director of Children’s Services.

iii)            Delegated authority to the Director of Children’s Services and the Procurement Manager to undertake procurement and enter into contracts for the delivery of the schemes set out in the appendices, including where varied under recommendation (ii).

iv)            Requested that consideration be given to establishing a corporate revenue fund for survey and feasibility works relating to the maintenance and development of the council’s assets.