The Council as the commissioner of school places has a statutory duty to "secure that sufficient schools for providing- (a) primary education, and (b) secondary education are available for their area" as well as to "secure diversity and increase opportunities for parental choice when planning the provision of school places" in the borough. The Council also has statutory duty to manage a potential surplus of schools places. Croydon is currently experiencing a high amount of surplus school places, which will continue to grow without school reorganisation strategies to reduce the surplus. This will involve undertaking a review of the projected demand to identify short, medium, and long term capacity requirements within the school system.

The findings from the review will be used to identify schools at risk of or already have a deficit budget due to falling rolls and used to support implementation of school reorganisation projects to manage the surplus places effectively. The post holder will play a key role on all matters relating to school place planning and forecasting. They will liaise with key internal and external stakeholders, e.g. DfE, ESFA, GLA, neighbouring authorities, School Admissions to obtain information / data to use to inform decision about current and future numbers of children and young people needing a school place in Croydon.

They will also monitor how the demand for places is being met through school reorganisations, e.g. Role-Profile-Template - updated April 15 Snr pupil place academy conversion and reduction of published admission number within Croydon and in neighbouring boroughs. Using the GLA School Roll Projection service, the post holder will lead on the completion of the DfE annual statutory School Capacity survey (SCAP), consisting of: capacity; forecasts; additional places data and place planning commentary. The post holder will be involved in the payment of Growth Funding to qualifying academies. They will work with finance, by providing relevant information/data and raising POs to allow growth payments to be made; and to be published as part of the Schools Forum report.

If you are interested in this role plase send your updated CV in the first instance.