Meeting documents

4.1 At its meeting on January 28 2002 the Education Committee resolved to "1) request officers to prepare the necessary documentation and arrange appropriate meetings to ascertain the view of school staff, governors, parents, pupils and other interested parties on the pattern of future specialist provision in Bath; and (2) That the Bath Special Project Group (on which Members are represented) determines when the process of formal consultation will begin"

4.2 The formal consultation process began on 25 September and closed on November 8 2002. 950 copies of the consultation document were issued to a wide variety of stakeholders including the staff, Governors and parents at the three schools most affected and also to the same stakeholders at Fosse Way School. All elected Members received a copy of the document.

4.3 The consultation document identified a preferred option which had emerged from the Bath Special Project Group meetings. In summary, this option means the closure of RUH, Lime Grove and Summerfield schools and the opening of a new special school serving multiple needs on a site at Frome Road in Bath. This option is known as `fusion' as it seeks to bring together all that is good in the existing schools and take this forward into the new school. All the responses from key stakeholders in the Bath special schools have been supportive of the Council's preferred option.

4.4 Members are asked to note the concerns expressed by staff, Governors and parents of children at Fosse Way School. Officers believe that the concerns are unfounded and that two multiple needs special schools can be sustained in the coming period in the context of the changed and changing role required of special schools. In response to these concerns Officers produced a discussion document `Fosse Way School - A Strategy for the Future'.

4.5 Members' attention is drawn to the response from Fosse Way School and the suggestion that the new special school should involve fusion of the three Bath special schools and Fosse Way initially based on two sites.

4.6 The Executive is asked to note that this would lead to the creation of a single special school with the advantages and disadvantages that are set out in Paragraphs 10.3 and 10.8 in the consultation document.

4.7 Members attention is drawn to the views of the Education, Youth, Culture and Leisure Overview & Scrutiny Panel. The Panel met in public on 18 November and heard from several witnesses. Comments and a recommendation from the Panel are attached at Appendix 4.

4.8 Members are asked to recognise the wide support that the preferred option has obtained and, in light of this, to agree to the submission of a bid to the Department for Education & Skills (DfES) for borrowing approval under the Targeted Capital Fund (TCF).

4.9 Members are also asked to authorise Officers to publish the necessary statutory notices for the closure of Lime Grove, RUH and Summerfield and the establishment of a new multiple needs school as set out in the consultation document. The results of the TCF bid should be known at the end of March 2003 and Officers believe that, in order to ensure that there is sufficient time for implementation of the proposal, publication of the notices should take place prior to the results of our bid being made known by the DfES.

4.10 Following publication of notices there is a two month period when any person can make representations, either in support of, or opposition to, the proposals. If objections are received then the matter falls to be determined by the School Organisation Committee (SOC).

4.11 If no objections to the proposals are received and the Targeted Capital bid is successful the final decision on whether to implement the scheme will be one for the Executive to take in the summer of 2003. Members will wish to be aware that proposals must be determined within four months of the publication of statutory notices.

4.12 Members are asked to note that it is not permissible for either the LEA or the SOC to approve a statutory proposal without there being evidence that the capital costs of the proposal can be met.

4.13 Publication of notices does not, in itself, commit the LEA to implementation. Only a further decision by the LEA or by the SOC can approve implementation.