33.Governing bodies of maintained schools have a power in section 27 of the Education Act 2002 (“the EA 2002”) to provide any community facilities or services which further any charitable purpose for the benefit of their pupils, families of pupils and the wider community. However, governing bodies are prevented by section 50(4) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (“the SSFA 1998”) from using their delegated budgets for the provision of community facilities or services.
34.Section 4 amends section 27 so as to require governing bodies in England to give consideration at least once in every school year to whether or not to use the power to provide these facilities, and how they might use it. The section also amends section 50 of the SSFA 1998 to allow governing bodies in England to spend their delegated budgets on the provision of those community facilities or services, subject to any specific restrictions set out in regulations.
35.Subsection (4) amends section 51A of the SSFA 1998 so that it no longer applies in relation to England. Section 51A enables a local authority to recover from a governing body any amounts spent by the authority as a result of a third party claim against the authority in relation to activities undertaken by a governing body pursuant to section 27 of the EA 2002. These amounts cannot be recovered directly from the governing body due to the restriction in section 50 of the SSFA 1998 on the governing body using its delegated budget for these activities but this will not be the case for schools in England after the coming into force of this section.