Archived decisions

Contact: Ann Begley, County Manager (Organisation) Children's Services, 01962 846518

Bob Eardley, Strategic Planning Manager, Children's Services, 01962 846275

1. Introduction

1.1 The planning of school places is informed largely by demographic trends. Since 1998, the effects of a long-term fall in the birth rate have produced significant reductions in the number of school age pupils. The latest forecasts of pupil numbers, however, show a change in the trends of recent years. The combination of a modest, but sustained, increase in the birth rate and the imminent construction of three major development areas, with more to follow, indicates that the emphasis in planning school places will need to change in coming years.

1.2 This report sets out the implications of these trends in more detail. Its focus is mainly on primary schools, as secondary school place planning issues will in the main be dealt with through the Government's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative, which is due to begin in Hampshire in 2011. Opportunities to work with secondary schools to manage the supply of places in the meantime will, however, continue to be taken.

1.3 The proposals in this report support the Corporate Strategies "Maximising well-being" and "Enhancing our quality of place" by proposing policies for the effective management of school places and financial provision for building new schools.

1.4 The five outcomes specified in the Children Act are set out below, with a summary of how the proposals in this report contribute to their achievement:

· being healthy (enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle): through proposals which include the encouragement of walking and cycling to and from school;

· staying safe (being protected from harm and neglect): by creating safe environments in schools;

· enjoying and achieving (getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood): by providing a high standard of education and care for children in suitable buildings;

· making a positive contribution (being involved with the community and society and not engaging in anti-social or offending behaviour): by encouraging the flexible and creative use of accommodation;

· economic well-being (not being prevented by economic disadvantage from achieving their full potential in life): by ensuring that proposals will not disadvantage children, will protect equality of opportunity and support children from no or low income families to secure skills and qualifications.

2. Recommendations

2.1 That the overall approach towards the management of school places set out in this paper is endorsed by Cabinet.

2.2 That the policy for managing surplus school places will be to:

a) reuse general teaching accommodation in schools with surplus places for specialist curriculum provision or community facilities, such as children's centres;

b) amalgamate infant and junior schools to form primary schools, thus retaining provision within communities;

c) pursue area reviews exceptionally and only where other options to reduce surpluses have proved unviable.

3. Localised growth in pupil numbers

3.1 Construction of four major new housing developments will be starting in the next two years. Details are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Development	Anticipated dwelling nos.
Andover - Picket Twenty	1,200
Andover - East Anton	2,500
West of Waterlooville	2,000 - 3,000
Basingstoke - Park Prewett, North Popley	2,500
Total	8,200 - 9,200

3.2 Further planned developments likely to follow in succeeding years are shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Development	Anticipated dwelling nos.
Aldershot Urban Extension	4,500
Queen Elizabeth Barracks, Fleet (subject to planning appeal)	1,050
* North Whiteley	2,000 - 4,000
Winchester north - Barton Farm	2,000
Total	9,550 - 11,550

* Subject to decision on South-east Plan proposals

3.3 New primary schools will be required to serve most of these communities. Using a typical dwelling to pupil ratio of one primary age child from every three to four homes, up to eleven new primary schools, with at least two forms of entry will be required. Each of these schools will cost about £8m at current prices. Further housing growth in future years will require more new schools to serve new communities. Early years facilities will also be required. There are no proposals for new secondary schools, but under BSF consideration will be given to matching the location of schools to new housing developments.

3.4 Detailed and highly complex negotiations with developers and district councils are required for each new major development to ensure the optimum level of financial contributions to construction costs and the provision of well positioned free school sites. New legislation will open up the management of new schools to competition, although the design, construction and funding will remain the County Council's responsibility.

3.5 Recently revised developers' contributions should meet most of the cost of provision, although for the Picket Twenty and Park Prewett developments contributions will be at significantly lower rates, as the S106 agreements were negotiated some time ago. There is already considerable pressure on developers' contributions from other public sector bodies and for the provision of other infrastructure elements which are the responsibility of the County Council. In the case of these developments and in any others where there is a shortfall of contributions, the difference in cost has to be made up from the Children's Services capital programme. In addition, developers' contributions are phased to coincide with the rate of housing completions. As schools need to be constructed relatively

early in the life of a development, a proportion of the developers' contributions need to be borrowed in advance, with a consequent cost to the capital programme. In the longer term the proposed introduction of Planning Gain Supplement could pose significant financial problems unless adequate provision is made for the provision of sites and building costs for new Children's Services facilities.

4. Surplus school places and their implications

4.1 Recent statistics show that since 1998 there has been a reduction of over 9,000 primary age pupils in Hampshire (9% of the 1998 total). Numbers are forecast to reach their minimum in 2011 and thereafter will begin to rise.

4.2 In spite of this trend, the need to manage surplus school places will continue. This is because of:

· continuing reductions in the number of young children in many of the older urban areas in the county;

· the implications of surplus places for school funding;

· the scrutiny placed on local authorities by the DfES through its annual surplus places return; and

· the implications of surplus places in determining the amount of credit approval made available to fund the construction of new schools.

4.3 These issues are dealt with in more detail in the following paragraphs.

5. Annual surplus places return to the DfES

5.1 Local authorities have for many years been required to provide an annual return to the DfES at the end of the summer term showing the capacity of all primary and secondary schools and the extent to which they have unfilled places. The return is accompanied by a commentary which has to explain for each school with more than 25% surplus places (where the surplus is 30 or more places) the reasons for the surplus and any plans to reduce it. The percentage of schools with 25% or more unfilled places is also an element is the County Council's CPA.

5.2 Proactive management of surplus places in Hampshire has led to the County Council being around the national average of authorities nationally for this measure, in spite of the significant reduction in the number of pupils over the last ten years. In terms of the overall percentage of surplus places, Hampshire has again been around the national average, with a current figure of 9% of unfilled primary school places.

6. Implications of surplus places for capital funding

6.1 The DfES allocates credit approvals annually according to a formula which is determined in the main by current pupil numbers, but which also takes account of authorities' current and forecasts numbers of surplus school places. The details of this formula are not publicly available, but account is definitely taken of the extent to which future growth in numbers could be offset by surplus places. This approach discriminates against larger authorities as, in practice, surpluses in one part of the county would have no bearing on meeting new demand in another. Given the number of new schools which will need to be built to serve new housing developments in the next few years, and the overall pressure on capital funding, it is important that surpluses continue to be managed to maximise credit approvals.

7. Management of surplus places

7.1 Most measures to manage surplus places are implemented through officers working with individual headteachers and governing bodies to reuse accommodation previously allocated for general teaching. Reuse can be either for specialist teaching, such as ICT or music/drama, or for wider community use, such as children's centres, community rooms. In the case of secondary schools, adaptation for activities to develop the 14-19 agenda, such as vocational education provision, are also taking place. The impact of the 14-19 curriculum changes has not yet been fully realised.

7.2 The Children's Services Department has reviewed its practice in relation to the reduction of surplus places in the light of the timescales and staff resources involved in area reviews and the unsettling effects of such reviews As a result a relatively small number of reviews has been undertaken in recent years in those parts of the county with very high numbers of surplus places. A recent example is north-east Andover, where the review was particularly important to ensure that developers' contributions to fund schools in the new MDAs would not be reduced because of surplus places in existing schools.

7.3 It is proposed that opportunities for amalgamations of infant and junior schools with falling rolls should continue to be pursued, particularly where governing bodies are supportive of the proposals. This approach, together with measures to secure the reuse of accommodation referred to in paragraph 7.1, would be the basis of the policy for managing surplus places. Only in exceptional circumstances would large scale area reviews of provision be undertaken.

7.4 As roughly three times as many surplus places have been removed in recent years through reuse of accommodation as have been removed through school reorganisations, most emphasis is likely to be on the management of spaces in individual schools.

7.5 The number of surplus places in schools, and in particular the number of schools with falling rolls, has an effect on overall school funding, as the County Council is resourced on the basis of actual pupil numbers rather than the number of school places. This means that schools with higher numbers of pupils are in effect subsidising those with falling rolls.

7.6 Table 3 summarises the numbers of schools with more than 25% surplus places in Hampshire in 2005 and 2006 compared with statistical neighbours and nationally. In recent years, there has been a misapprehension about the County Council's performance in this area, with the Audit Letter stating that the number of schools with more than 25% surplus places in Hampshire was significantly above the national average. This is not the case. Comparative data published by the DfES show that from 2004 to 2006 the County Council was at or below the national average for this performance indicator. The position has been discussed with the District Auditor and will be corrected for next year.

Table 3 - percentage of authorities' schools with more than 25% surplus places

Local authority	2005		2006
	Primary	Secondary	Primary	Secondary
Bedfordshire	12	12	12	16
Cambridgeshire	16	6	14	6
Essex	11	8	15	10
Hampshire	13	6	13	6
Hertfordshire	12	9	10	11
Leicestershire	13	6	14	7
North Somerset	12	0	9	0
South Gloucestershire	11	14	16	27
West Berkshire	13	0	11	0
West Sussex	12	8	14	5
Worcestershire	13	14	16	14
Statistical neighbour averages	13	8	13	9
National averages	13	6	14	8

7.7 The January 2007 figures for Hampshire schools with more than 25% surplus places are 12% for primary and 9% for secondary. Table 3 demonstrates that the County Council has, through proactive management, maintained good control of surpluses at a time of rapidly falling school rolls.

7.8 Table 4 for primary schools, and Table 5 for secondary schools, show the number of surplus school places (and percentage surpluses) in each district council area, and the number of schools with more than 25% surplus now and as forecast for 2012.

Table 4 - Numbers and percentages of surplus places in primary schools by district council area

Table 5 - Numbers and percentages of surplus places in secondary schools by district council area

7.9 Tables 4 and 5 indicate the wide range of surpluses across Hampshire, reflecting different demographic characteristics and the uneven impact of new housing developments.

7.10 Work is progressing through Area Directors and District Managers to identify needs for future provision such as children's centres, inclusion partnerships, resourced provision etc. to achieve creative ways of using surplus places. In this process a high priority is given to removing temporary accommodation. Realistic proposals by governors and headteachers for effectively managing surplus places, e.g. Burnham Copse, Tadley, in ways that meets the needs of their communities are particularly welcome.

8. County Council Policy Requirements

8.1 Legal implications - The proposals support the County Council's statutory duty to provide school places and comply with central government accommodation requirements and guidance.

8.2 Financial implications - These are set out in the report.

8.3 Personnel implications - None directly arising from this report.

8.4 Community cohesion, inclusiveness and partnership working - Most of the capital projects proposed in this report support these aims.

8.5 Crime prevention issues - None directly arising from this report.