Decision details
Ralph Allen School - Capital Expansion Project
Decision Maker: Corporate Director (People)
Decision status: Approved
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
Purpose:
The Council retains the legal responsibility
for pupil place planning and has a statutory duty (under section 14
of the Education Act 1996) to provide sufficient school places in
its area. In order to achieve this the Council's priority is to
ensure there is sufficient provision of school places in the right
areas to meet need. These places can be delivered within community,
academy, free school, voluntary controlled and voluntary aided
schools.
Basic Need (BN) grant is allocated to the Council from the
Department for Education (DfE) on an annual basis. The funding is
allocated to support the provision of sufficient school places and
the statutory duty of the Council.
Ralph Allen School will build a new eight classroom teaching block
to enable them to increase their Planned Admission Number from 180
to 210 from September 2019. In addition the School will admit an
extra 30 pupils making their PAN 240 over a three year period
between the academic years 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24. This
increase in pupil numbers will enable the Council (as part of the
phased approach to increase secondary provision across Bath) to
meet the shortfall of places for the projected high numbers in
these years.
Failure to provide sufficient places in the right areas will result
in the Council failing in its statutory duty; parents and children
being required to travel out of their locality to attend another
school; increased transport (revenue) costs and schools being
unable to take local children.
Decision:
To fully approve capital amounting to
£2,250,000 from the provisional capital programme to be
allocated to Ralph Allen School to carry out a school expansion
project and increase their Planned Admission Number (PAN) from 180
to 210 from September 2019. In addition the School will admit to a
PAN of 240 in a three year period from 2021 to 2023.
Alternative options considered:
Following consultation with the six Bath
Secondary Schools bids were invited to provide additional pupil
places supported by capital funding. As a result of this
consultation a number of schemes were identified as part of Phase 1
of a two phased approach and the expansion project at Ralph Allen
School was one of these.
Publication date: 22/02/2019
Date of decision: 20/02/2019