Labour Cllr Ian Albert (Hitchin North) has called on Hertfordshire County Council to be more transparent about the additional funding required to complete four flagship SEND projects.

The schemes – the relocation and expansion of Breakspeare School (Croxley Green), a satellite site for the Collett School (Hemel Hempstead), the new Journey's End school (Potters Bar) and the relocation of the North Herts education support centre (Letchworth Garden City) – had an initial budget in excess of £50m.

But last month (July), the council's Liberal Democrat cabinet agreed to increase that spending in the wake of escalating costs.

Those additional costs were said to reflect higher-than-inflation increases in building costs, a failure to make a correct application to the DFE and – in the case of the Breakspeare School – "significant additional groundworks necessary to address the chalk infrastructure".

However, the amounts involved were not made public, with financial discussions held behind closed doors, first at a meeting of the council's education, SEND and inclusion cabinet panel and then the cabinet.

In response to an earlier enquiry, a spokesperson for the county council said it would not "be prudent" to place the costs in the public domain.

And it was suggested that to do so would hamper the council's ability to secure value when negotiating projects.

But now Labour Cllr Ian Albert says those amounts – either for individual projects or for the four projects collectively – should have been published and should have been discussed by the council's resources and performance cabinet panel.

He suggests the multi-million pound capital spend has implications for the revenue budget too. And he says there is a need for greater transparency.

He has already written to deputy chief executive Scott Crudgington, suggesting that "at least an overall amount for the projects" could have been included in council papers that are publicly available.

And he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "For me, the key issues are transparency and financial accountability.

"All residents – and councillors – have a right to know how much extra is being spent in total and be able to properly scrutinise it.

"The former Conservative administration failed to deliver on these key SEND projects.

"But the new Liberal Democrat administration must be braver when making key decisions to ensure that the cloud of secrecy is lifted.

"And that even includes when, in principle, you agree with the decisions."

In response, a spokesperson for Hertfordshire County Council suggested again that publishing the information would hamper contract negotiations.

"It would not be prudent to place the cost of these projects into the public domain, as to do so would hamper our ability to secure the best value for taxpayers when negotiating contracts both now and in the future," said the spokesperson.