Purpose

Proposed decision
–
 
1) Allocate £2.5m of the
Children’s, Young People and Education capital and revenue
budgets to continue to deliver the policy objective of ensuring
Chilmington Green Secondary School can
move into its permanent buildings in the academic year 2025-26.
 
2) DELEGATE authority to the Director of
Infrastructure in consultation with the Director of Education and
SEND, the General Counsel and the Cabinet Member for Education and
Skills to enter into any negotiations, contracts or contract
variations that may be required. This includes enabling funding
provided under this and previous related key decisions 21/00014,
22/00080, and 23/00057 to be used as a collective to deliver the
policy objective.
 
3) DELEGATE authority to the Director of
Infrastructure to be the nominated Authority Representative within
the relevant agreements and to enter into variations as envisaged
under any of these contracts and to take other relevant actions,
including but not limited to entering into other contracts or legal
agreements, as necessary to implement the decision.
 
 
Reason for the
decision
 
The Council has consistently confirmed its
commitment to ensuring the new secondary school at Chilmington Green, Ashford can move into its
permanent buildings in the 2025-26 academic year.  Ongoing issues with the delivery of the utilities
and the access road threaten achieving this policy commitment.
Funding is required to ensure sufficient resources are available to
achieve the objective, and to contingency plan for an alternative
to ensure pupils on roll in September 2025 have access to school
accommodation. 
 
Background
 
Three previous key decisions
have been made in respect of the delivery of Chilmington Green Secondary School:
 
21/00014 – which provides
funding to deliver the utilities and access road, and confirmation
that contributions received from the developer to fund the build of
the school will be passed to the Department for Education as it is
forward funding the build of the school.
 
22/00080 – which provides
the resources to provide a temporary school site and accommodation
for the school to open in.
 
23/00057 – which provides
funding to address issues covered by privileged legal
advice.
 
Options (other
options considered but discarded)

 
The Council had an agreement
with Hodson Developments (Ashford) Ltd to deliver the road and
utility infrastructure required to open the school.  For reasons covered in the exempt key decision
21/0014, this option has been discarded. 
 
How the proposed
decision supports the
Framing Kent's Future - Our
Council Strategy 2022-2026
 
The proposed decision supports priorities one
and two of Framing Kent’s Future:
 
Commitment under priority one –
Levelling up Kent:

To maintain KCC’s strategic
role in supporting schools in Kent to deliver accessible, high
quality education provision for all families.

Commitments under priority two –
Infrastructure for communities:

Through our ‘Infrastructure
First’ commitment we seek to ensure that new development
provides the appropriate physical and social infrastructure
necessary to support new and existing communities’ quality of
life.
To help all Kent’s communities
benefit from having a strong social fabric which underpins family,
community and personal resilience.

 
How the proposed
decision supports Securing Kent’s Future 2022 -2026:

Securing Kents Future - Budget
Recovery Strategy.pdf
 
The proposed decision is
compliant with objective 3 of Securing Kent’s Future –
the Council has made a policy choice to secure the opening of this
school on its permanent site. The DfE are forward funding
c£40m of capital investment, which is supporting the
developer and the Council with their respective cash flow and in
respect of the Council, to discharge its statutory responsibility
of ensuring all children have access to a school place.
 
Financial
Implications
 
The previous key decisions
provide £8m towards the delivery of the school.  £2.9m of this is for the costs of temporary
accommodation.  £3.1m is allocated
as loan funding to the developer to provide the utility and road
infrastructure and is to be repaid. 
£2m is set aside to deal with issues covered by legal
privilege and is expected to be recovered.
 
These decisions have created
“pots” for specific activity.  An underspend against one Record of Decision (ROD)
is not necessarily available to support pressure against a
different ROD.  It is proposed that this
changes, such that the totality of funding can be used to deliver
the policy commitment.
 
A further £2.5m of revenue and capital
funding is required to ensure the road and utilities can be
delivered, and to provide for further temporary accommodation in
the event this proves necessary.  The
Council will seek to recover these costs as appropriate.
 
Detailed funding considerations and the wider
financial impact will be set out in an Exempt Report.
 
The current Basic Need Capital Budget totals
£168m (covering the period 2024-27) and will be impacted, at
least in the short-term, whilst the legal responsibility for
funding the additional costs is resolved and funds recovered. The
Basic Need Capital Programme is managed as a series of projects and
any additional funding requirement could require re-consideration
of other planned activities. However, growing inflationary and
other build cost increases including the increased risk of
continued use of temporary accommodation supports the progression
of this matter as quickly as possible to minimise greater financial
costs being incurred.
 
The Education Service has a revenue budget
line for temporary accommodation.  The
costs of this proposed decision are expected to be prioritised in
2025-26. 
 

Decision

As the
Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, I agree to:

Allocate up to a total of £1.2m from either the
Children’s, Young People and Education capital or revenue
budgets, as appropriate, to continue to deliver the
policy objective of ensuring Chilmington Green Secondary School can move into
its permanent buildings in the academic year 2025-26.

APPROVE the updated temporary accommodation
arrangements, subject to requirement as set out in the
report.

DELEGATE authority to the Director of Infrastructure
in consultation with the Director of Education and SEND, the
General Counsel and the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills to
enter into any negotiations, contracts
or contract variations that may be required. This includes enabling
funding provided under this and previous related key decisions
21/00014, 22/00080, and 23/00057 to be used as a collective to
deliver the policy objective.

DELEGATE authority to the Director of Infrastructure
to be the nominated Authority Representative within the relevant
agreements and to enter into variations
as envisaged under any of these contracts and to take other
relevant actions, including but not limited to entering into other
contracts or legal agreements, as necessary to implement the
decision.