Councillor hits out over lack of detail in schools' plan

A senior Conservative councillor has slammed the lack of detail on future Powys County Council school building projects.

A Labour cabinet member has shot back that funding new school building projects without considering the costs could be a “Götterdämmerung” moment for the council and lead to its total collapse.

At a meeting of the Powys County Council’s Learning and Skills scrutiny committee on Wednesday, councillors and independent lay members went through next year’s budget proposal for schools, which included capital expenditure on building projects.

In recent years, the council has embarked on a school “transformation” programme which has seen seen several small schools closed and old and worn out school buildings elsewhere replaced with new ones.

Conservative group leader Cllr Aled Davies said: “There’s been significant pushing of the capital programme into the long grass – in previous years we’ve had individual projects listed, it’s not so this year.

“There’s a strong relationship in investing in new schools and dealing with the backlog of maintenance.

“Transformation has started to go backwards over the last couple of years and we’re not delivering for the young people of Powys, I think we’ve lost our way.”

Treasury management accountants James Chappelle explained: “Rather than highlight each scheme individually we’ve decided to lump them into one line.

“We thought there was an issue with people having awareness of the council’s full budgets with these schemes and possibly tendering for the full amount rather than what it would actually cost them.”

The capital programme outlines that £19.320 million is earmarked for new school building projects, £2.5 million for school maintenance, £159,000 for “other” costs making a total of £21.979 million.

Mr Chappelle added that school building schemes had been outlined in the Strategic Outline Programme (SOP) and had been agreed by the Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet last year.

This document shows the potential projects that the council wants to build and will submit to the Welsh Government for funding support over a 10 year period.

Head of school transformation Marianne Evans said: “Our ambition still stands for major capital investments programme in our schools.

“Our SOP was approved by Cabinet and Welsh Government.”

She revealed that building new school’s is not the council’s default position anymore and that extensions and remodelling of existing buildings were now being considered as well.

Cabinet member for education Cllr Pete Roberts said that school building proposals had been “delayed” in recent months due to Cabinet members wanting a review done on the types of school buildings that could be built.

Cllr Roberts said: “There is another layer of due diligence being put it, to look at whether the approach we have used in the past is the most cost effective.”

Finance portfolio holder, Labour’s Cllr David Thomas, said: “If we allow this capital programme to go along unchecked and uncontrolled, it’s going to directly impact the revenue budget.

“You end up with a situation of a Wagnerian Götterdämmerung and the whole edifice would collapse.”

Director of corporate services Jane Thomas stressed: “The council does have a significant level of borrowing and rising inflation has seen higher interest rates and the costs is going up.

“We are finding it difficult to balance what we are able to deliver against affordability and some projects will take longer.”

Recommendations from the committee will be added to the budget papers that will go in front of councillors at a meeting on February 20 when they vote on the overall budget.

“Götterdämmerung” is the last of German composer Richard Wagner’s four epic opera works – Der Ring des Nibelungen, also known as the Ring Cycle.

It is about the twilight of the Norse gods and their final destruction in a battle against evil forces – the word is used to denote the collapse of a society in violence and disorder.

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporting Service