The private funding element of the programme was part of the increased use of private finance initiative (PFI) funding by successive Labour governments.[1] BSF was ambitious in its costs, timescales and objectives.[2] Fourteen local education authorities were asked to take part in the first wave of the Building Schools for the Future programme for the fiscal year 2005/6.[3] By December 2009, 96 local authorities had joined the programme.[citation needed]
In 2007 the programme was complemented by the announcement of a Primary Capital Programme, with £1.9billion to spend on 675 building projects for primary schools in England over three years.[4]
On 5 July 2010, in the early stages of the coalition government's austerity programme, the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, announced that following a review, the programme was to be scrapped, calling it "bureaucratic and wasteful."[5] Projects which had not achieved the status of 'financial close' would not proceed, meaning that 715 school revamps already signed up to the scheme would not go ahead. He also announced that a further 123 academy schemes were to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.[6] Many years later, Gove stated that cancelling the programme was his biggest mistake in office.[7]
Aftermath
A successor between 2014 and 2021 was the Priority School Building Programme, under which the government provided capital grants for the replacement or repair of over 500 schools.[8]
As of 2020, hundreds of schools were still awaiting new buildings.[9] In May 2022, the civil service warned the government that many school buildings were in such a state of disrepair that they posed a "threat to life".[10]
On 31 August 2023, the Conservative government announced 147 schools[11] were found to use RAAC in their construction, forcing schools to redistribute pupils, switch to hybrid learning, or delay the start of term. Critics have pointed to Gove's decision to scrap the BSF scheme in the drive to save money as a central factor in the delays to repairs and new builds.[12][13][14]
Management
The BSF programme had historically been dogged by sporadic or no management at the top, with Richard Bowker (Chair and Chief Executive of the Strategic Rail Authority) leaving his post after eight months. He was replaced in November 2006 by Tim Byles, who joined from Norfolk County Council, where he had been CEO for 10 years.[citation needed]
Initially, all Local Authorities (LAs) were placed in a national programme consisting of 15 waves. The programme did not proceed as rapidly as had been expected and both the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and Partnerships for Schools (PfS) began looking closely at the authorities' capacity and readiness to deliver projects. During the spring of 2008, the DCSF consulted on the management of future waves of BSF and subsequently invited all LAs to submit an Expression of Interest to joint the BSF programme sooner than the original programme might have indicated. The announcement of the new programme arrangements was made on 2 March 2009 and at subsequent briefings to Local Authorities it was made clear by PfS that demonstrable "readiness to deliver" was to be a key condition for future pledges of funding.[citation needed]
A tranche of forty authorities were invited to make a "Readiness to Deliver" submission by 8 May 2009. Of those that did, only Hampshire, Barnet, Bolton, Peterborough, Wigan and Sunderland were successful. In early August 2009 the authorities that had been unsuccessful, as well as those who had delayed making a submission, were advised that all submissions for the remaining twelve places to be allocated during the financial year ending on 31 March 2010 were to be made by 17 September 2009. On 30 November 2009 it was announced that eleven local authorities – Brent, Darlington, Devon, Havering, Kingston, Croydon, Norfolk, Plymouth, Sefton, Wakefield, and Warrington – would be joining the BSF programme for the first time, with another two – Lancashire and Tameside – starting the next phase of their BSF schemes. This brought to 96 the number of local authorities in England which were active in BSF.[citation needed]
The National Audit Office reviewed the programme up to December 2008.[2] Their report found that the Department and PfS had been overly optimistic in their assumptions of how quickly the first schools could be delivered, and that scaling up the programme to deliver all 3,500 new or refurbished schools would be challenging. They found that the costs of building schools had been kept under control and were similar to most other schools, but the costs of setting up the local partnerships had been high, in part from extensive use of consultants.[15]
The Minister for Schools announced in June 2009 that PfS was to assume responsibility for the management and delivery of all school building and refurbishment programmes. Day-to-day responsibility of all schools' capital programmes, including the Primary Capital Programme, transferred from the DCSF to PfS on 1 October 2009.[citation needed]
Private Eye noted high staff costs in December 2009, stating that the Chief Executive and top four directors received about £750,000 p.a. in total.[16]
Funding and budgets
Primary education
Primary schools were initially not included in BSF, although in March 2006 it was announced that a parallel programme – the Primary Capital Programme (PCP) – would be starting for primary schools and schools for primary-age special needs pupils. Rather than allocating money by authority in waves, it was intended that there will be regional pilot schemes in 2008, leading to a broader approach whereby all authorities could apply for funding from 2009.[17] Funding to Local Authorities would only be confirmed once they had submitted and gained approval for their 'Strategy for Change' (SfC) describing how they would address the PCP priorities.
Thus 23 Local Authorities (LAs) initially had access to £6.5million each to refurbish a primary school, before widening access to an overall budget of £1.9billion, with an initial expectation of starting 675 primary school building projects over the following three years.[4] In November 2008, 41 additional LAs had their Strategies for Change accepted (green status) and thus their PCP funding for 2009/10 and 2010/11 approved. 92 LAs were invited to submit further information (amber status) and only had their 2009/10 funding approved, and 15 LAs (red status) were required to address specific issues in their Strategy before any funding was approved.
Secondary education
The BSF programme involved the decentralisation of funds to local education partnerships (LEPs) to build and improve secondary school buildings. However, the LEPs were not only responsible for the construction of the buildings but also for co-ordinating and overseeing the educational transformation and community regeneration that the investment can support. The private sector LEP partner(s) were intended to introduce capital and expertise. With investments of over £2billion in the first year, across an estimated 200 schools through the country, it was claimed as the single biggest government investment programme in education for over 50 years.[18] The then- Prime Minister Tony Blair said the investment "will see the entire secondary school building stock upgraded and refurbished in the greatest school renewal programme in British history."[3]
Capital funding available for investment in school buildings rose sharply from £683million in 1996–97 to £3.8billion in 2003–04; this further increased to £4.5billion in 2004–05 and to £5.1billion in 2005–06, £9.3billion over 2008–11, and £8.2billion in 2011,[4] ultimately costing £45billion over 15 years to 20 years. Funding was in 15 'waves', or groups of authorities.[17] BSF was intended to be approximately half conventional and half Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funded. Of the £2.2billion for BSF, £1.2billion (55.5%) was covered by PFI credits.[3]
Funding associated with BSF was not just limited to construction and equipment in new schools, but also improving facilities at existing schools, such as providing schools with direct capital funding to spend on buildings and Information and communications technology (ICT). Depending on their size, primary and secondary schools received about £34,000 and £113,000 respectively during 2007–08 for these initiatives, which equates to around £1billion across English schools.[19]
Criticism
Most of the major new building works were PFI-funded, which takes the construction and facilities management (but not the educational provision) out of the financial control of local education authorities because the construction and facilities management of a school becomes a source of revenue for the consortia involved for up to 30 years, even if the school is no longer needed.[20] While promoted as a huge investment in public services within Secondary Education, it allowed a consortium made up of a financiers, construction companies and IT companies to take away control of public assets from the local authority.
This may handicap future changes, as designers currently face difficulties in trying to predict how learning environments will evolve, exacerbated by poor levels of participation by governors, teachers, pupils, and the community in the design process. The scale of the building programme was far larger than the capacity of the available pool of experienced architects and designers, while the educators running the developments had very little prior experience of commissioning such major construction works. There was little sharing of best practice and learning between authorities, schools, contractors, suppliers and others involved in BSF, and the timescales discouraged thorough planning.[17][21] The funds provided under this programme were used for materials and building infrastructure (usually including repairs and on-going maintenance) whilst funding for teaching continued in the normal way, except in the case of academies where funding came directly from the Secretary of State. A consequence of the PFI element of the programme was that recurrent and strategic maintenance of school buildings is addressed within the contract, which reverses the tendency for school governing bodies to under-allocate funds for these aspects of asset management, leading to high levels of backlog maintenance at many schools. [citation needed]
Bidders for funding claimed that the work to put together a bid was onerous and costly, and required the navigation of many government bodies. The co-ordinating body, Partnerships for Schools, was reportedly focused on construction procurement without a full understanding of all the other factors involved.[17]
There were accusations that the relationship between the quality of infrastructure and the quality of pupil education was not clearly demonstrated; many of the schools at the top of the league tables were ancient schools with mostly ancient buildings. The House of Commons Select Committee expressed concerns that, whilst this investment in spaces to support learning was unprecedented, the enormous scale of the project was not being managed to ensure that its scope and aims remained appropriate. There were no clear or consistent objectives set down to judge progress, or to establish if this was the best way to spend £45billion on education. 800 schools most in need had already been prioritised and refurbished in the years immediately before this programme started; it was unclear what the current need was, and how the money previously spent would fit in with the broad untargetted approach of BSF.[17]
The selection of some schools for demolition and rebuilding was controversial; notably there were criticisms in the architectural press over the demolition of the brutalistPimlico School, with many calls for the building to be protected by being placed on the register of listed buildings.[22] The designs of 10 of the first 11 schools, including Pimlico, were granted planning permission even though they have been described by CABE as 'mediocre' or 'not yet good enough'.[23] They noted that it was possible to be selected for a PFI scheme without a high quality design.[24]
The upgrade programme took place at a time when building standards were being substantially rewritten to incorporate improved energy efficiency and green construction methods. Schools were alleged to emit about 15% of the public sector's carbon footprint in the UK. New schools and refurbishment projects were required to perform an assessment in accordance with the Building Research Establishment's assessment method (BREEAM) that checked against environmental performance targets for new and refurbished school buildings.[25] However, there were concerns that commercial imperatives would mean no incentives to exceed these standards were put in place, and the subsequent works were mainly being designed against the cheaper but less energy-efficient older building standards, with very little cash being set aside to meet pending standards.[26] To counter some of this criticism and to celebrate the many positive aspects of the BSF programme, in November 2008 Partnerships for Schools hosted the first annual "Excellence in BSF Awards", recognising a wide range of aspects of the initiative.
Achievements
District BSF plans
Primary and secondary schools in the district of the Wyre Forest in Worcestershire were part of the national school upgrading process from Building Schools for the Future. The plans also involved local sponsors and LEA funding to provide £130m to rebuild, extend and modernise five secondary schools and approximately 10 primary schools. The Wyre Forest area of Worcestershire is a sub-rural settlement of three towns, Kidderminster being the largest, Stourport being the second largest and Bewdley on Severn being the smallest. The schools that were part of the BSF 2013 rebuild plans included:
Wolverley Sebright Primary School and Nursery, Wolverley
Kidderminster Pupil Referral Unit
In 2008 The Bewdley School and Sixth Form Centre were provided with a £4m, state-of-the-art modular building. The look, sustainability and practicality are some of the reasons that the modular building has influenced other new major building projects including BSF, in places such as Birmingham, London and Staffordshire. The new projects in Bristol such as Bridge Learning Campus and many new primary schools have been based on the modular building at Bewdley.
New schools / colleges / academies
The BSF programme provided funding for the construction of entirely new schools and colleges, as well as rebuilding existing ones and providing ICT funding to non-BSF, new-build schools.
Forest Oak School (Solihull Centre for Inclusive Learning), Solihull. Opened May 2006.
Merstone School (Solihull Centre for Inclusive Learning), Solihull. Opened May 2006.
Bamburgh School (Horsley Hill Community Campus), South Tyneside. Opened October 2006.
A number of BSF schools were funded as "One School Pathfinders", in Local Authorities that were in later waves of the programme. These projects helped to build capacity and competence in those authorities, as well as to provide exemplars in sustainability and science ("Project Faraday").
The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 1992 by Prime Minister John Major, and expanded considerably by the Blair government, PFI is part of the wider programme of privatisation and macroeconomic public policy, and presented as a means for increasing accountability and efficiency for public spending.
Bewdley is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District in Worcestershire, England, on the banks of the River Severn. It is in the Severn Valley, and is 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Kidderminster, 10 miles (16 km) north of Worcester and 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Birmingham. It lies on the River Severn, at the gateway of the Wyre Forest national nature reserve, and at the time of the 2021 census had a population of 9,267. Bewdley is a popular tourist destination and is known for the Bewdley Bridge, designed by Thomas Telford, and the well-preserved Georgian riverside.
Cramlington is a town and civil parish in Northumberland. It is 6 miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne. The name suggests a probable founding by the Danes or Anglo-Saxons.
The Byker Wall is a long, unbroken block of 620 maisonettes in the Byker district of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. They were designed by Ralph Erskine and constructed in the 1970s. The wall is just part of the estate, which in total covers 200 acres.
John Laing Group plc is a British investor, developer and operator of privately financed, public sector infrastructure projects such as roads, railways, hospitals and schools through public-private partnership (PPP) and private finance initiative (PFI) arrangements. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index prior to its acquisition by KKR.
Newcastle College is a large further education and higher education college in Newcastle upon Tyne, with more than 16,000 students enrolled each year on a variety of full time, part time, and distance learning. It is the largest further education college in the North East of England and one of the largest in the United Kingdom.
Wyre Forest is a local government district in Worcestershire, England. It is named after the ancient woodland of Wyre Forest. The largest town is Kidderminster, where the council is based. The district also includes the towns of Stourport-on-Severn and Bewdley, along with several villages and surrounding rural areas.
Gosforth Academy is an English secondary school in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne. As well as having a sixth form department it is a specialist Language College. Many of its mainstream students come from three large feeder middle schools: Gosforth Central Middle School, Gosforth East Middle School and Gosforth Junior High Academy.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital is a hospital in Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It was opened in March 2001 and serves patients from the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Bexley. The hospital was built to accommodate the services previously provided at Greenwich District Hospital and Brook General Hospital, and is a Private Finance Initiative hospital. It is managed by the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust.
The Decent Homes Standard is a technical standard for public housing introduced by the United Kingdom government. It underpinned the Decent Homes Programme brought in by the Blair ministry which aimed to provide a minimum standard of housing conditions for those housed in the public sector - i.e. in council housing or by housing associations.
Jesmond Park Academy is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
Hameldon Community College was a mixed 11–16 comprehensive school located in Burnley, Lancashire, England.
Gosforth Junior High Academy, formerly known as Gosforth West Middle School is a middle school in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is the Junior School of Gosforth Academy.
Shuttleworth College, formerly Gawthorpe High School, is a mixed 11–16 foundation secondary school located in Padiham, Lancashire, England.
Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School is a comprehensive school located in Meanwood, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.
Partnerships for Schools (PfS) was established in 2004 as a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), wholly owned and funded by the Department for Education (DfE), to deliver the UK's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. In March 2006, PfS also took on responsibility for delivering the Academies programme, integrating delivery into BSF where possible.
The Bewdley School is a senior school and sixth form in Bewdley, serving north-west Worcestershire, England. Its campus is very close to the River Severn and lies on the border of the Wyre Forest national nature reserve. Bewdley is an educational research partner of the University of Worcester and University of Birmingham and is recognised for its focus on international and cultural education. In 2019, Bewdley hosted the Global Happiness Conference in partnership with the British Council. The Bewdley School has close ties with the nearby Bewdley Rowing Club established in 1877.
The Leeds City Region, or informally Greater Leeds, is a local enterprise partnership city region located in West Yorkshire, England. Prior to the West Yorkshire devolution deal, the partnership covered parts of South and North Yorkshire. According to the Office for National Statistics, as of 2017 the city region ranked 2nd behind Greater London for both population and GVA in the United Kingdom. It has a population of 2,320,214 million and a GVA of £69.62 billion.
Walbottle Academy, previously 'Walbottle Campus and Walbottle Campus Technology College', is a large secondary Academy in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is one of the largest secondary academies in Newcastle.
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