Minutes:
Councillor Lorraine Lindsay Gale received a question on Notice from Ms Nilofer Khan, Head Teacher of Fir Tree School, Wallingford as follows:
Following the liquidation of Carillion and the withdrawal of its subcontractors, please could the Cabinet Member for Finance say if there is any funding available in the Capital Programme, as reported to the Cabinet on 19th December, to help to ensure that Fir Tree School is able to continue to educate its students in a safe and appropriate environment, with a good classroom for each class.
Reason: The building works at our school has come to a grinding halt due to the closure of the Carillion contract with OCC. We would like to ask the council members if they can let us know what can be done to get the work started again as our year 6 children have been in temporary portacabins for the last six months. Since February the toilet facilities have had to be closed and the space in the portacabins is just not adequate for learning. This is having a negative impact on both children and staff. With the year 6 SATs drawing near we are very concerned about the affect this is going to have.
Councillor Lindsay-Gale answered as follows:
Thank you Ms Kahn, I will respond to your formal question shortly, but first I would like to talk to the children…
Thank you for coming today and speaking so bravely and clearly about your problems. It was very important that you did. I am sorry that this has happened to you and that your last year at school is being affected by this awful situation. On behalf of the Council I want to promise you that we will do everything we can to put the situation right. But there are other schools in situations like yours, so this promise has to be for all of them too. I hope you understand.
I will now talk to your Head Ms Kahn and respond to her question.
The reason I commented that it was important for your children to come here today, is not only that it is a good experience of local democracy in action, but also because it highlights the difficult situation we, the council, are in following the collapse of Carillion. Your school’s project did not come to a halt because Oxfordshire County Council ended its contract with Carillion, which we did back in September 2017, it came to a halt because Carillion went into liquidation on January 15th 2018. Before that, even though we had ended our contract for construction with Carillion, we had agreed that they would finish work that was underway. This is why the work at Fir Tree Primary School only stopped when the liquidation happened this year.
Since then we have been trying to find a way to finish the project, and all the other school projects affected. This is really difficult, and we are sorry that the collapse of Carillion has had an impact on your school. We are doing everything we can to find a way to re-start the work.
Last week we sent an email to all councillors to explain the pressure on the council following the collapse of Carillion. We explained that Carillion’s liquidation means that we no longer have anyone to claim damages against for defects or for unfinished work. This means we will have to fund these ourselves. We will need to prioritise all our work and this is going to be challenging. We are going to need the patience and support of schools and councillors as we go through this process. This is not just an Oxfordshire issue but a national one that we are raising at a national level.
Mrs Nilofer asked the following supplementary question
I do understand and appreciate that we are not the only school in this position, However, as Head of fir Tree, I have over 51 children in temporary accommodation which is not meeting basic need, is cramped, not properly ventilated and without working toilets. The children are in their final year. Please can you give me an assurance that there will be a tighter timescale and that phase 1 (lighting, carpeting and painting) will be completed as soon as possible so that I can educate the children in a comfortable and safe environment.
Councillor Lindsay-Gale responded as follows:
At the moment all I can assure you is that I will try my very best, /we are undertaking a complete review of all the properties and all the projects that are underway and until will have a finite view of the size of the problem it is hard to say, but we are working as hard as we can on it.