To receive any apologies for absence

None received.

To receive any declarations of interest

Cllr Bateson declared an interest in the item ‘School Participatory Budget Scheme – Summer 2016 Voting Round’ as a school governor at Charters School

Cllr Hill declared an interest in the item ‘School Participatory Budget Scheme – Summer 2016 Voting Round’ as an associate governor at Oldfield School

Cllr D. Wilson declared an interest in the item ‘School Participatory Budget Scheme – Summer 2016 Voting Round’ as a school governor at Desborough College

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 13 June 2016

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting held on June 13 2016 be approved, subject to an amendment to refer to Members by role rather than by name.

The Lead Member for Planning said that he wanted to make it clear that his comments in the minutes of the meeting of 13 June 2016 were not intended to sound negative, and that his comments should be viewed in a positive manner.

To consider the above report

Members considered the results of the voting for 15 projects that had applied for funding. The maximum total amount available was £100,000, to be split into equal amounts of £33,000 across each of the three school terms. Schools were advised that the maximum amount of funding they could apply for was £6,000.

The Interim Performance Manager reminded Members that this was the first round of voting for a new pilot scheme, and that there were 15 applications from 14 schools to be considered. Around 8,500 votes had been received in total. He said that a weighting system had been devised so as not to disadvantage schools with a smaller number on its roll. Voting was not currently restricted to one vote per person, although there had been very few duplicate votes.

The Principal Member for Neighbourhood Planning, Ascot & The Sunnings & Communications highlighted an apparent typographical error Appendix A in that Charters School had applied for £5,316 for funding rather than the £6,000 stated in the Appendix and that St Edmund Campion Catholic Primary School had applied for £6,000, rather than the £5,316 stated in the appendix..

With regard to the number of votes received from a number of schools with small roll numbers, it was highlighted that smaller schools had tighter-knit school communities and therefore appeared to generate  more votes per pupil. The Chairman advised  that the weighting system  would be reviewed after the third round of voting. He added that officers would impress upon schools the importance of all pupils being encouraged to vote, as four schools received fewer votes than there were pupils on its roll. The Interim Performance Manager highlighted that the project for Charters School had only been added with two weeks of voting left, compared to other schools which had up to nine weeks of voting. He advised that the document detailing how the weighting of votes would be applied would be added to the RBWM website. He also explained that when the scheme was being designed an option to group schools into specific categories based on school size had been considered but that the weighting system was considered the fairest method.

It was noted that schools that were unsuccessful in the current round of applications would be included in the next round, together with any new applications.

Members requested that future reports include details of the total cost of projects for which schools were applying for funding.

Members voted to give funding to the five schools that had received the highest number of votes, taking into account the weighting.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That:

•           £6,000 be awarded to The Royal CE (Crown Aided) School

•           £6,000 be awarded to Knowl Hill CE Academy

•           £6,000 be awarded to Braywood CE First School

•           £6,000 be awarded to Waltham St Lawrence Primary School

•           £6,000 be awarded to Trevelyan Middle School