Issue - meetings

To consider PowerPoint presentation.

Note – The Chair will allow 40 minutes for this agenda item.

The Committee received a presentation on education place planning, providing an overview of statutory duties, the Somerset context, projection modelling, education growth and challenges, local first approach, developer contributions, extended / expanded childcare offer and expansion of wrap around provision.

The Vice Chair thanked the officer for the excellent presentation.

The Committee received a presentation from Phil Curd, the Council’s Head of Education Places on education place planning. He provided an overview of statutory duties, the Somerset context, projection modelling, education growth and challenges, local first approach, developer contributions, extended / expanded childcare offer and expansion of wrap around provision.

The Committee asked a number of questions and made a number of comments which were responded to at the meeting, as follows:

·      Question on pupil yields and SEND figure of 0.92 children per 100 homes (slide 7) – the calculation was explained; 2% of school aged children are in specialist provision and the yield data had been recalculated recently and is accurate. When looking at developing school places the approach is the local first approach (slide 8).

·      Query on yield data (slide 7)  - some housing developments have not yielded numbers and some areas of the county such as West Somerset have surplus number of school places.

·      Developed contributions (slide 9) and is the council making best / ensure that education gets the money it needs – the current challenge is securing the contributions we need; are streamlining the planning process and LGR provides a big opportunity, to amalgamate 4 teams and for a single approach to priority areas; this is an emerging situation but an enormous step forward; the new Somerset wide local plan too is being developed. Detailed work is also on going in the council around developer contributions via s106 process.

·      Expansion of warp around provision (slide 18) and how can increase numbers of schools offering after school provision until 6 pm  - this is around having sufficient economies of scale and is a challenge. Are more likely to see after school provision being available in more urban areas (where families tend to live closer to the school) than in rural areas (and transport is an issue), so its around viability (demand) and rural nature (transport).

The Vice Chair thanked the officer for the excellent presentation and the committee noted the update.