THIS REPORT RELATES COUNCIL TO ITEM 16 ON THE AGENDA

STIRLING COUNCIL COMMUNITIES AND CULTURE

2 DECEMBER 2010 NOT EXEMPT

COMMUNITY USE OF SCHOOLS POLICY AND STRATEGY 2010-2015

1 SUMMARY

1.1 During the period the Public Private Partnership schools estate and the Raploch Campus were being planned, there was a firm understanding, conveyed to the communities, when consulted, that all schools would be viewed as accessible by the community.

1.2 In September 2009 a Community Use of Schools Policy Group was set up by the Chief Executive Bob Jack to take work forward in this area. This Group comprised:-

Head of Schools – Bob Cook (now Belinda Greer) Head of Assets – Bob Gil Head of Communities & Culture – Kathleen Taylor Chief Executive of Active Stirling – Andrew Bain and to be chaired by Kathleen Taylor (Chair).

1.3 This report sets out a revised community use of schools policy and the required strategy strands to ensure maximum community access and use with progress to date against those strands.

2 RECOMMENDATION(S)

It is recommended that Council :-

2.1 Agree the policy statement;

2.2 Agree the key principles;

2.3 Agree the strategy strands and that the required actions to date against these strategy strands are noted.

2.4 Agree to note the connections with other areas of work. 3 CONSIDERATIONS

3.1 Schools Estate

3.1.1 Public Private Partnership School Estates Development – there has been extensive Public Private Partnership school estates development over a number of years with the following schools within the programme:-

• High School (PFI)

• Dunblane High School

• McLaren High School

• St. Modan’s High School

• Stirling High School

• Wallace High School

3.1.2 The full schools estate – this includes in addition to the above Public Private Partnership schools the following: See Appendix 1 (attached).

3.1.3 Raploch Campus is viewed as a Community Campus and includes a schools area which combines the following schools:-

• Raploch Nursery

• Our Lady’s Primary School

• Raploch Primary School

3.2 The policy statement refers to all schools within the Education portfolio, including all non-Public Private Partnership schools.

Background Context

3.3 UK Treasury figures for the capital costs of Stirling’s PPP schools is £83 Million, with the total outlay by the Council of £424.54 Million by 2041.

For Balfron Private Finance Initiative the established total capital value is £16 Million and total by 2041 is £83.14 Million

3.4 Since the initial meeting the growing difficulties of the Council’s financial position became clearer. There was a decision by Stirling Council Senior Management Team to include an Asset Strand in the Transformation Programme working towards £25-30M savings. At present there is a section on Community Use of Schools recognising that all areas of assets require to be included in contributing to savings. Realising any savings is likely to be towards the end period of the transformation work but will be highly dependent on the groundwork carried out through the policy and strategy work for Community Use of Schools.

3.5 There is also the potential for other providers using schools to increase on site services required by the community.

Proposed Policy Statement

3.6 That Stirling Council maximises the use of Public Private Partnership schools, Raploch Campus and others to ensure communities have access to the most modern facilities available within their locale and to encourage synergies of delivery across services and partners for the benefit of communities, within available resources.

3.7 Present Position: Schools and Community Use:

It is clear that the present community use starting position (type of use and volume) for each school is different. However, each school is expected to deliver higher levels of community access and use.

3.8 The key principles which have emerged are:-

3.8.1 Principle 1

Secondary schools will be the hub of community activity.

Implications – that new community activity will be encouraged into secondary schools initially and that over time existing community activity will be encouraged into secondary schools. This could include new providers of services including possibly greater input from colleges and universities.

Reasons – the Public Private Partnership schools have capacity and are state of the art learning centres, able to provide greater access to services and learning activities for children, parents, families and local organisations support community development. The presence of other learning providers, libraries, voluntary and community organisations such as in Raploch provides a healthy mix of key agencies assisting the community. Integrating services for the child and family support will be explored further.

3.8.2 Principle 2

Contextual Statement

The primary function of schools is the core curriculum and associated ancillary activity. There is scope to widen the community use of schools activity within a planned and managed approach to the mutual benefit of all.

Principle

All secondary schools will be open for bookings and other services and partners will work together to have more integrated activities.

Implications

• Booking systems require to ensure all agreed available accommodation is available for community use.

• A single corporate approach to booking management of schools/Raploch Campus is explored and put in place.

• All community activity is valued by all services and partners as contributing to the benefit of the community.

• Balancing the needs of different users and providers is built into booking systems and user agreements and that an independent appeals system is put in place to deal with competing demands. Council priorities should be clear.

Reasons – present booking arrangements are not perceived as uniform and often difficult for users to understand and use. There is also often a sense of individual services not being able to examine their use of space to free up space for other users.

3.8.3 Principle 3

Secondary schools will have a base benchmarking position for community use of accommodation with a requirement to grow beyond this each year.

Implications

• Systems for tracking accommodation use and reporting require regular updating and reporting to relevant managers

Reasons

• Managers need a stretch target for improvement.

• Underutilisation costs the taxpayer.

3.8.4 Principle 4

Raploch Community Campus moves towards a fuller community access position with partners developing collectively new protocols based on mutual needs and greater understanding of policy drivers and recognising the costs of changes to present PPP contracts.

Implications

• Mechanisms for new protocols will be required.

• Updated identification of the needs of the community will be required.

• Flexibility within present contracts will be required.

Reasons

• Raploch Campus can build on an existing daytime community use.

• Raploch Campus is different in setup from the Secondary Schools and in a position to move forward with a wider group of stakeholders.

3.9 Mechanisms for Improving Availability and Uptake by Community

• Pilot work in Stirling High has improved the numbers of rooms available for the community and a marketing campaign is in progress. (See Appendix 2).

• Baseline percentage use of accommodation is now possible through improved reporting development work.

• Audit of storage in all secondary schools and Raploch Campus.

3.10 Strategy: Community Use of Schools Policy (see Appendix 3)

There are 6 strands to the Strategy:- Strand 1 Ensuring understanding of the policy and strategy by key services and commitment to new approaches. Strand 2 Establishing present use of facilities, potential for increased use and promotional activity. Stand 3 Roll out to all secondary schools in a phased approach.

Strand 4 Find mechanisms to establish venue shifts across school cluster areas. Strand 5 Check changes and concessions for all activity are in line with new charging framework once agreed. Strand 6 Assess potential for other providers of services to use school premises to increase access to the services to the community.

4 POLICY/RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS AND CONSULTATIONS

Policy Implications Diversity (age, disability, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation) Yes Sustainability (community, economic, environmental) Yes Corporate/Service Plan Yes Existing Policy or Strategy Yes Risk Yes Resource Implications Financial Yes People Yes Land and Property or IT Systems Yes Consultations Internal or External Consultations Yes

Policy Implications

4.1 Diversity

Opening up community spaces for community use, if costs are not prohibitive, may encourage more groups to meet and work alongside other groups in the community.

4.2 Sustainability

The present economic climate will continue to have pressures for community groups on costs of running buildings and in gaining funding towards costs/refurbishments etc. Groups are more likely to have longer-term sustainability within a school facility and less management pressures through financial concerns.

4.3 Corporate/Service Plan

Service plans for schools, communities, assets and possibly others will have collaborative tasks on this agenda.

4.4 Existing Policy or Strategy

The present difficulties created by not having a policy statement in writing and clarity of action expectation can be improved.

4.5 Risk

Benefit of existing facilities is not maximised.

Potential for community groups to expand local networks through close physical working with other groups is not realised.

Resource Implications

4.6 Financial

• Value for money issues exist when key assets are underutilised.

• Potential for revenue to the Council through charges to community groups may cover increased use costs but will require strict monitoring.

• Increased income from shared use of premises with other providers may be possible.

• Potential for business use can be explored for increased revenue.

4.7 People

• Community staff will have to identify and assess how to support organisations in an area within limited resources.

• Staff in schools and Raploch Campus will find this approach a significant culture change and need to understand the benefits of moving forward with this policy and strategy.

• Staff involved in management of the changes and implementing the improved booking systems require to understand the urgency expected on implementation.

• Property staff are involved from strategic asset management and able to support analysis of present accommodation use.

4.8 Property/Land

• Some properties/land may be freed up over time within cluster areas and further work will be required on this.

Consultations

4.9 Consultation to date

• Overall consultation on the Policy has been with Heads of Service Education, Communities & Culture, Assets and Active Stirling and the Portfolio Holder.

• Consultation between Council booking staff and School staff has resulted in improved room availability for community bookings through auditing of rooms in the initial schools identified for audit.

4.10 Future Consultation

• Consultation on policy implementation will continue with schools.

• Consultation with individual community groups will be required as groups respond to promotion of facilities.

5 BACKGROUND PAPERS

5.1 None.

Author(s) Name Designation Tel No/Extension

Kathleen Taylor Head of Communities & 443388 Culture

Robert Gil Head of Assets, Property & 442643 Facilities Management

Belinda Greer Head of Education 442680

432326 Andrew Bain Chief Executive, Active Stirling

Approved by Name Designation Signature

Kathleen Taylor Head of Service

Date 15 November 2010 Reference

APPENDIX 1

List of Schools and Nurseries

Arnprior Nursery Baker Street Nursery Cornton Nursery Killin and Crianlarich Nursery Nursery Doune Nursery Fallin Nursery and Out of School Care Hillview Children and Family Centre Killin Nursery Park Drive Nursery Raploch Nursery Wellgreen Nursery Aberfoyle Primary School and Nursery Allan’s Primary School Balfron Primary School and Nursery Bannockburn Primary School and Nursery Borestone Primary School and Nursery Breahead Primary School and Nursery Bridge of Allan Primary School and Nursery Buchanan Primary School Primary School Callander Primary School and Nursery Cambusbarron Primary School Cornton Primary School Cowie Primary School and Nursery Crianlarich Primary School Deanston Primary School Doune Primary School Primary School Dunblane Primary School and Nursery East Plean Primary School and Nursery Fallin Primary School Primary School and Nursery Gargunnock Primary School Gartmore Primary School Inversnaid Primary School Primary School and Nursery Kincardine-in-Menteith Primary School Primary School Newton Primary School and Nursery Our Lady’s Primary School Port of Menteith Primary School Raploch Primary School Riverside Primary School and Nursery St. Margaret’s Primary School St. Margaret’s Episcopal Primary School and Nursery St Mary’s Primary School St Ninian’s Primary School and Nursery Primary School and Nursery Strathyre Primary School Thornhill Primary School Trossachs Primary School Balfron High School Bannockburn High School Dunblane High School McLaren High School St. Modan’s High School Stirling High School Wallace High School

APPENDIX 2 Community Use of Schools

High School Booking Activity

Progress Report 15 November 2010

SUMMARY

This report gives an update of work currently undertaken to enable increased community use of High Schools.

The key activity to date has been centred on Stirling High School and now started at Wallace High. The activity will be rolled out to all high schools overtime. Raploch Campus is the next building to be reviewed.

The key activities are:-

(i) The audit of and updating of bookable space availability in the school/campus (ii) Local marketing of the spaces (iii) Identification of additional space for further exploration (iv) Working towards a further stage of more targeted encouragement of local groups to consider moving into the school.

For Stirling High

(i) Audit and updating of bookable space availability

Spaces are currently available to be booked by the community between 6pm – 10pm Monday to Friday and 9am – 9pm Saturday & Sunday up to a maximum of 300 hours per annum.

Site visits to Stirling High and Wallace High have been carried out and information held on the central booking system has now been updated to reflect all bookable spaces available in the facilities.

An additional 9 spaces were identified at Stirling High giving a total of 27 bookable spaces whilst an additional 4 spaces were identified at Wallace High giving them a total of 24 bookable spaces.

Active Stirling have now launched their Active Living Express in Stirling High, this provides access to the Gym, limited access to the swimming pool and a variety of fitness classes. Publicity for this service has been carried out by Active Stirling and to date they have around 100 members currently using the facilities.

Sports facilities are used by Active Stirling from 6pm – 10pm Monday to Friday and on Saturday 9 am - 1pm. (ii) Local Marketing

1. Update of the website which is extremely out of date with information being really difficult to find. This is the most urgent area of work, which requires to be undertaken as soon as possible. An initial meeting with the web team has taken place and an estimated timescale for completion of this work is now mid October.

2. A poster campaign in the local area would bring the facilities to the forefront of people’s minds. We are currently awaiting the first draft of the poster, which should be available in the next week or so. Once it has been agreed they will be distributed locally. An article has also been placed in the community newsletter and Stirling Magazine. It should be noted that Active Stirling have carried out their own marketing in relation to the sports facilities within Stirling High.

3. Contacting local Community Groups to get them onboard to promote the use of the facility. At a meeting with the Torbrex Community Council it was agreed that they would include a flyer in their news letter which is due to be distributed at the end of October. All other Local Community groups will be contacted via Community Services staff that currently work with them. The estimated completion date for this exercise would be late October.

(iii) Identification of other spaces requiring Exploration

Non-term time access to facilities between 6 & 10pm is restricted to the sports hall and the astro pitch, if this was to be extended to other parts of the school FES have provided the following indicative costs.

a. Assembly Hall/social/theatre/stage - £117.52 per night b. Student social space/dining area - £58.76 c. Community Suite - £19.38 d. Library - £39.38

This requires further cost benefit analysis

Cancellation of lets for school events. This includes the use of the assembly hall for up to 6 weeks during exam times. A decision not to use facilities such as assembly halls and sports halls during exams would need to be taken to allow increased usage.

This requires further exploration.

(iv) More targeted approaches to local groups

Contacting lessees who currently use other facilities within the local area to encourage them to move to Stirling High. This may be a bit more difficult as lessees are often reluctant to change. An analysis of potential groups is ongoing. In the interest of good customer care it is important that groups are met on a one to one basis, it is recognised that this would be a time consuming process however it is hoped that the effort would show in the outcome with groups supporting such changes. It is important that Community Services staff is involved in this process from the outset. No fixed timescale can be given at this time; however, work on the analysis is ongoing.

This requires further exploration on practicalities

Customer requirements for catering. The current practice of requiring to hire a catering assistant makes it both difficult and expensive if a group requires basic catering such as Tea and Coffee. Groups who currently using community centres have access to facilities to allow them to provide their own. A workaround would need to be found for this, possible providing an urn in the social space for lessees to use.

Storage for equipment for Community groups in schools has always been limited in the past and some community groups find it difficult to use facilities where little or no storage can be assigned to them.

In order to improve this situation the asset management function has started an audit of all storage spaces in Raploch Community Campus and this will be rolled out to secondary schools. Additional storage has been assigned to Big Noise and Plean primary at present due to pressing needs of these organisations.

It is important to note that schools have found it quite challenging to adjust to limited storage for school activity which was reduced when they moved into PPP schools and in addition there are PPP restrictions on freestanding storage in corridors.

While the storage audit work is going on there will continue to be a case-by-case effort to facilitate storage space where at all possible.

It is important that the expectations of individual groups remain realistic while this is being assessed. It is unlikely that large-scale storage will become available and any storage is likely to be very restricted and would likely have to be limited to groups with regular bookings.

Systematic review of storage in schools will be required.

To take the work forward a new group is being set up to include

Customer Service Support Catering & Cleaning Assets & Facilities Management Active Stirling Education (School Resource Officers)

This group will be led by the officer responsible for bookings across Council.

Conclusion

• Initial work in Stirling High has given additional spaces for bookings and there is evidence of a small increase in bookings • Monitoring of levels of usage will be required on a regular basis to check increases overtime • Review of marketing will be required.

APPENDIX 3

Strategy: Community Use of Schools Policy

Timescale Person Responsible Progress Strand 1 Ensuring understanding of the policy and strategy by key Policy Group services and commitment to new approaches Key Actions • Moving to policy awareness raising via Council October 2010 groups in policy statement, principles and key actions October – December • Gaining commitment to policy through Council / 2010 SCSMT January 2011 • Ensuring all key services understand roles onwards Establishing present use of facilities, potential for April – July 2010 for L Watson reporting increased use and promotional activity required Stirling High to policy group STRAND 2

Through Stirling High Project April-July 2010 (i) Complete (ii) Complete Audit of spaces to be undertaken (iii) Started

• (i) Present usage / potential usage established • (ii) Benchmark established • (iii) Promotions put in place

Roll out to other secondary schools in a phased approach August 2010 -August L Watson supported Started with Wallace 2011 by Head of Service High STRAND 3 Education Undertake an audit of storage within PPP schools. June 2010-June 2011 Asset staff Started with Raploch Campus Find mechanisms to establish venue shifts across school Start August 2011 cluster areas Planning 3 months in Communities team STRAND 4 • To ensure that all transitions are planned and advance of moves with L Watson supported by initial agreement Transitions supported • To plan shifts if appropriate to other secondary as requested schools in a phased approach Check charges and concessions for all activity are in line January 2011 Lynne Watson + with charging framework and guidelines for users Barbara Allan STRAND 5 (including booking guidelines) • To establish if present charging charges / concessions are affected by any of the changes • To establish if present guidelines for users (including booking guidelines) are fit for purpose within the new way of working • To ensure systematic communication of all requirements to existing users

Assess potential for other providers of service to use August 2012 Communities Team school premises to increase access to the services to the and Headteacher STRAND 6 community

Reporting of the Strategy Actions to be agreed but no less than annually.