6. How can the 21st century schools programme be most effectively used in city centres? OQ61419

Our sustainable communities for learning programme is fully aligned with the town-centre position statement and 'town centre first' principles when considering new schools and colleges. The location and links to town and city centres are considered key to improving access and supporting increased footfall.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Albany Primary School is a really important community school in the heart of my constituency, with excellent leadership, a dedicated staff team and a governing body who've not let the physical state of the building get in the way of the quality of teaching and learning. But this Victorian school is causing a huge amount of challenge to the local authority who are struggling to fix the roof and other essential repairs. The pupils have had to put up with three years of scaffolding in their playground, which is already tiny and contains almost no green space. Millions have already been spent on this building and it's still not fit for purpose.

How can the twenty-first century schools programme be applied to inner-city schools like Albany, which continue to serve a community where there's a considerable population of young people, but there is no spare land to build on, unless we were to decant them onto a park and then move them back in afterwards? What would be your proposals for a school like this, which can't be unique to only this part of Cardiff?

Thank you, Jenny, and it's great to hear about the positive work that you described at Albany school. The sustainable communities for learning programme supports a wide range of projects and is about more than providing new-build schools, and we have delivered major refurbishment projects to improve existing facilities, particularly where there's limited opportunity to rebuild. The programme is fully aligned with our community-focused schools policy to ensure the projects are delivered in collaboration with families and the communities they serve, to maximize the benefits of our investment.

It is, of course, for local authorities, though, to be responsible for developing their investment priorities as they are best placed to understand the needs of their communities. The programme is also supported by a range of supplementary capital grants to invest in our schools that are not included within the programme, and over the last three years we've allocated £60 million in capital funding to support the delivery of community-focused schools, and £5.4 million of this funding has been allocated to Cardiff Council. We allocated £108 million to support repairs and maintenance across the school estate, £11.8 million of which was allocated to Cardiff Council. But it is the local authority that's responsible for developing their investment priorities as they’re best placed to understand the needs of their communities.