Council's School Build Programme (Milton Keynes Liberal Democrats)

Milton Keynes Liberal Democrats <info@mk-libdems.co.uk>

Council's School Build Programme

December 3, 2007 6:28 PM

Milton Keynes Council's Liberal Democrat administration has welcomed the publication of a number of audit reports on the Council's school build programme. The reports make several clear recommendations about how the Council can improve its massive school building programme. The reports will be considered by a Special Audit Committee on 5 December.

Liberal Democrat Council Leader, Isobel McCall, said: "The audit reports flag up some very serious issues. We realised some time ago that problems with overspends and delays to the opening of some of our new schools needed to be urgently dealt with and set up a Programme Management Board to bring together the different parts of the Council that are involved with building new schools." The reports welcome the setting up of the Board as a way to manage school building more effectively.

Councillor McCall continued: "The very detailed investigations undertaken to produce the audit reports have highlighted that the situation is far more serious than we thought. I have asked the Council's Chief Executive to take personal charge of ensuring that the Council delivers the audit report recommendations, all of which have already been accepted by the managers concerned. I will be asking him for regular updates to check that these serious issues are being dealt with."

The audit reports also show the Council has delivered a very large-scale and complex school build programme totalling 18 schools in just the last three years.

• One third were finished within two weeks of the target completion date

• Two were actually built under budget

• Over half were within 4% of the agreed budget.