Archived decisions

Contact: Bob Eardley 01962 846275

1. Summary

1.1 The following decisions are sought:

2. Reasons for decision

2.1 To ensure that the criteria for assessing bids for Seed Challenge grant in 2002/03 take account of the forthcoming increases in devolved capital funding available to schools.

3. Other options considered and rejected

3.1 Not applicable

4. Conflicts of interest declared by the decision maker or member or officer consulted

4.1 Not applicable.

5. Dispensation granted by the Standards Committee

5.1 Not applicable.

6. Reason(s) for the matter being dealt with if urgent

6.1 Not applicable.

Approved by: Date of decision:

Councillor D. Allen

Contact: Bob Eardley 01962 846275

1. Background

1.1 For the past two years, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has made available capital grants to LEAs through the Seed Challenge scheme to supplement locally raised resources for the provision of major capital projects at schools. The amount of grant available over the last two years has been substantially overbid by schools and it has been necessary to set criteria for selecting which schemes should be allocated funding. Most of the criteria relate to the extent to which individual schemes meet curriculum needs in schools, but even when these criteria have been applied, there is still significant over-subscription of the available funding.

1.2 To address this issue, a de minimis test has been applied to all applications. Schemes which could be implemented by schools using two years' worth of their devolved capital, plus the new money raised by them and offered for inclusion in the Seed Challenge bid, were excluded from consideration. This was because it was feasible for schools to implement such schemes within two years and the emphasis under the Seed Challenge scheme is to lever in additional capital to enable larger schemes to be undertaken. The assessment criteria were set originally by the Education Buildings Sub-Committee in May 2000 and were endorsed by the Sub-Committee on 5 April 2001.

2. Proposed Variations to Assessment Criteria

2.1 The assessment criteria which operated in the last two years were successful in keeping the number of schemes competing for funding to a reasonable level and were seen, with only few exceptions, by schools as fair. One result of applying these criteria, however, has been that no secondary school schemes have been eligible for Seed Challenge grant to date.

2.2 There is now a need to re-assess the de minimis criterion because the amount of devolved capital available to schools in 2002/3 is some 25% higher than in the current year. If the de minimis criterion were to be applied in the same way as in previous years, it would be even more difficult for secondary schools to qualify for the grant.

2.3 Officers have reviewed this year's applications for Seed Challenge grant and have applied the existing criteria. The result is that while most of the schemes submitted by primary and special schools would continue to qualify for consideration if the same de minimis rule were to be applied, no secondary schemes would qualify. An alternative approach would be to set minimum scheme costs to qualify for grant. The effect of this for primary and special schools would be that the smaller schools, with less devolved capital, would be disadvantaged and, therefore, it would be fairer to retain the existing criteria. For secondary schools, however, setting a minimum scheme cost of £100,000 would ensure that smaller schemes could be paid for from devolved capital and locally raised funding, while larger schemes could be considered for Seed Challenge grant. A further argument in favour of this arrangement is that the amount of grant will increase from £690,000 in the current year to £1.2m in 2002/03, increasing the capacity to deal with more costly schemes.

2.4 The revised approach to de minimis levels for Seed Challenge schemes set out in paragraph 2.3 is recommended for adoption.

Recommendations

1. That the criteria approved by Education Buildings Sub-Committee on 5 May 1999 for the assessment bids by schools for Seed Challenge grant be varied for secondary schools only as follows:

That the provision for schemes which could be funded from two years' devolved capital plus the "new money" available to be ineligible for Seed Challenge grant, should be replaced by a minimum scheme value of £100,000, below which schemes would be ineligible for Seed Challenge grant.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Documents

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

N.B. the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.