Agenda item

1.00 pm

Report by the Director, Capital, Investment & Delivery (ESC6)

At the meeting in June 2018, the Committee received an initial update on the Council's response following the liquidation of Carillion. The report provides an update on the next phase of the plan which focuses on an assessment of the Carillion legacy issues - including completing projects that were underway, defects on completed projects and the management of the longer-term project risks such as latent defects. The report further provides an update on the progress with the assessments and the plans to establish a business as usual situation regarding these former Carillion projects.

The Education Scrutiny Committee is RECOMMENDED to:

(a)      note the progress in relation to the Recovery Plan;

(b)      note and comment on the proposed joint review on the maintenance of the schools estate.

At its meeting in June 2018, the Committee had received an initial update on the Council's response following the liquidation of Carillion. The Committee now had before it a report which provided a further update on the next phase of the plan which focused on an assessment of the Carillion legacy issues - including completing projects that were underway, defects on completed projects and the management of the longer-term project risks such as latent defects.

The report further provided an update on the progress with the assessments and the plans to establish a business-as usual-situation regarding these former Carillion projects.

Vaughan Burnard, Interim Head of Construction, and Varinder Raulia, Assistant Director Major Infrastructure Construction, attended to speak to the report and answer any questions the Committee might wish to ask.

In introducing the report, Mr Burnard explained that replacement contractors were now in place for all the in-flight projects and that most of the projects were now completed.  The Property Service had maintained regular contact with stakeholders to ensure that they were aware of the replacement arrangements, including the timescales for completing works.

An assessment had been carried out in June in relation to the rectification of known defects, including consideration of optimal solutions for rectification.  Costings and implementation plans would be considered by Cabinet in the Autumn as part of the budget setting process. 

Urgent defect rectification had been carried out since Carillion’s demise and c.£650k had been expended in doing so in order that schools affected could continue to operate. Although there were over 150 projects in the exercise, most were minimal in terms of scope. However, there were five key projects that required more substantial attention. They were:

(1)      Bodicote (Longford Park)

(2)      North West Bicester, (Gaglebrook)

(3)      Dicot, Great Western Park (Gems Academy)

(4)      McIntyre Academy SEN & Residential School (Endeavour/Ormerod)

(5)      Faringdon Junior School (Faringdon Academy)

He further explained that whilst it was important to note that correcting the defects was essential and would be undertaken as soon as possible, none of the projects presented a health and safety risk and therefore did not require immediate action.

In relation to the treatment of latent defects, he went on to explain that two options were being looked at: establishing an internal process to review Latent Defect claims from schools and if qualifying, correct them, funded by an OCC provision and a legal response to other parties in the OCC/Carillion contract to recover costs of OCC’s defect clearance and ongoing latent defect liabilities.

The other area of concern Mr Burnard drew the Committee’s attention to was the Schools Estate. It had become increasingly clear through the Carillion legacy assessment, audit work direct contact between schools and the Property Service that the position on repairs and maintenance of schools needed to be more fully assessed and quantified. Maintenance was currently delegated to schools and only became an OCC issue in rare cases where certain structural repairs were required that could be legitimately funded from the Schools Structural Maintenance Programme Budget.

There were questions around the effectiveness of this approach especially where school funding was not being used to maintain new facilities provided by the council. Whether OCC remit or Academy remit, they were all de facto OCC liability in the event of Academy failure.  It was therefore proposed to commission a joint review to consider the condition of schools and the approach to maintaining them in the future. This was likely to result in an OCC-managed annual property review for all Schools in Oxfordshire. 

During discussion Members made the following points:

Members expressed the importance of keeping members informed of progress on schools within their divisions individually as well as through forums such as the schools forum, locality meetings etc;

Members further asked to see the priority list that had been requested back in April undertaken, and that a building condition survey of all schools in Oxfordshire be undertaken as soon as possible to access the scale of work required.  It was noted that many schools/academies had recently undertaken comprehensive surveys and a suggestion was made that officers approach the schools for copies of these before spending additional money in commissioning their own surveys.

RESOLVED:  to:

(a)      note the progress in relation to the Recovery Plan;

(b)      note and comment on the proposed joint review on the maintenance of the schools’ estate;

(c)       receive a further update on progress in six months.