Decision details

At the Cabinet meeting of 06/06/11, it was agreed “to delegate authority to the Executive Director for Children’s Services & Learning, in consultation with the Director of Corporate Services, following consultation with the Cabinet Members for Children’s Services and Resources to take any action necessary to facilitate the use and occupation of the Former Millbrook Community School site for the provision of children’s services, including services ancillary to those functions, subject to compliance with any statutory requirements. This delegation shall include, but is not limited to, the power to grant or acquire property and contractual interests in the site to deliver such services.”

In line with this decision, a meeting is to be convened to determine the proposal to relocate the Compass Centre Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) provision to the site previously occupied by the Millbrook Community School. This decision will follow a period of consultation with affected parties (e.g. staff, parents/carers etc.), the outcomes of which will be fed into the decision making process. The proposal itself is to relocate the PRU into a temporary “home” within the Millbrook buildings from 5 September 2011. This will enable refurbishment of that element of the building which is to provide the permanent “home” for the PRU within the 2011/12 academic year.

(i)  To consider and take into account the outcome of stakeholder consultation, as set out in Appendix 1

(ii)  To determine whether or not to approve the relocation of the Compass Centre PRU provision to the site previously occupied by the Millbrook Community School, effective from 5 September 2011

The Compass Centre PRU currently provides alternative learning for the city’s permanently excluded Key Stage 3 pupils. However, the Compass Centre’s present accommodation is deemed to be unsuitable, against both quantitative and qualitative measures. Furthermore, there is a need to expand this provision to cover primary-aged pupils (for which there is currently no permanent base in the city). The Compass Centre does not presently have sufficient space to accommodate such an expansion in provision.

Owing to the fact that the Compass Centre has insufficient space to accommodate its current and changing needs (and taking into account the fact that there is no scope to expand the existing buildings), it is perceived that it is necessary to relocate the PRU to a larger site. Due to its proximity with the Compass site, its being ideally suited to educational reutilisation and the fact that it has recently been vacated, the former Millbrook Community School site has been identified as the preferable alternative location in this respect.

The existence of alternative options for the relocation of the Compass Centre PRU would necessarily be reliant upon the existence of alternative sites that were readily accessible and provided suitable facilities for this type of provision. However, there are no other vacant sites in the city that have the same level/standard of pre-established educational provision waiting to be utilised. As such, there are no other competing alternatives for a potential relocation.

The option of not relocating this provision would present the authority with a significant issue in terms of the Compass Centre being unable to accommodate the proposed expansion in provision (to primary-aged pupils). The only realistic means of overcoming this would be to locate the Key Stage 1 & 2 provision at the Millbrook site, whist retaining the Key Stage 3 provision at the Compass site. However, this would fail to deliver improved accommodation for the Key Stage 4 provision and would result in the authority incurring the increased costs associated with operating provision across a split site. As such, this option has been rejected.