Academy plans need full-time supervision

A dedicated manager will be appointed to supervise the work in creating Oldham’s three new academies.

The new position, which is being advertised, comes after a scathing report to councillors earlier this year criticising the lack of proper planning for Oldham’s new Roman Catholic academy.

The new manager will look after the design and technical aspects of the new academies, and the rebuilding and remodelling of the other secondary schools, called Building Schools for the Future (BSF).

Some will be on new sites, some use existing school buildings and some sites have contaminated soil and other underground problems.

He or she will have detailed work to do, including completing land sales, site surveys, managing transport and highways, planning permissions, and environmental issues.

A report on the council’s website says four different officers have been doing the job on a part-time basis, seconded from other departments.

But the arrangements are unsatisfactory, and technical consultants are not cost-effective.

It adds: “This lack of continuity in this key area has disrupted the overall process and a sustainable solution is needed, as the project enters the implementation phase.”

The three academies will open in existing school buildings from September, and their new buildings will open from 2012. The BSF schools will all be completed by 2014.

In March this year, the council’s head of corporate governance, Mark Stenson, criticised flawed plans for a new Roman Catholic academy on the Meridian site on King Street in Oldham.

The plans were drawn up for land the council did not own, driven by a management team which was too small and a partnership board which was too big.

Eventually the plan was abandoned and the Catholic Diocese chose the site of the former Chadderton Grammar School on Broadway instead.