The Priority School Building Programme

Communication to parents from The Council (and to an extent from Schools) has continually informed parents that  buildings at Strathmore are not up to the needs of the children. A note home from The Russell School to parents last week also asserted that there were serious issues with the quality of buildings there too.

There is a central Government fund, the Priority School Building programme, with money put aside  for exactly this purpose.

We have therefore put in Freedom of Information requests to both The Council and the Department for Education to see if Richmond applied for this money for the two schools.

If the applications were rejected we would be interested in seeing why.

If no applications were made we will be asking why the Council has decided that selling School land is a preferred option to applying for central Government grants aimed at solving exactly the issue stated around the quality of  buildings.

Here's a short extract from Michael Gove, SoS at the Department for Education outlining the money on offer centrally

In addition, last year I invited bids to a new programme from schools in need of urgent repair. 587 schools applied for the programme on the basis of their condition need. Today I can confirm that 261 schools will be rebuilt, or have their condition needs met through the Priority School Building programme (PSBP) and a copy of the list has been placed in the House Libraries. Officials have today written to all schools who applied for the programme to confirm whether their application has been successful. Work will begin immediately and the first schools will be open in 2014.

I recognise that many of the schools that applied to the PSBP and have been unsuccessful will also have significant condition needs. Some of those will have their needs addressed through the other funding we have made available for maintenance. Where that is not the case, I will use the information from the national programme of surveys we are currently conducting to ensure that, subject to funds available in the next spending review period, those schools which need renovation will have their needs addressed as quickly as possible. By next autumn we will have details about the condition of every school in the country. Information on the condition of all schools was last collated centrally in 2005