June 2010

Kate Reynolds FRSA

Strategic Development Director
Education Services

We are beginning to see the flesh on the bones of the new Coalition Government’s approach to    education.  Recent announcements have included the potential of 2,000 new academies focused on existing outstanding state schools, freeing up the national curriculum, and a raft of initiatives focused on bringing new providers into the school system.  Building on models like the ‘free’ schools, charities, groups of parents, as well as private sector providers are likely to be encouraged to run schools. 

Sitting alongside the focus on schools is a similar emphasis on reducing the number of non department public bodies more commonly known as Quangos.  Both BECTA which oversaw the development of strategies around education ICT and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority responsible for developing the national curriculum amongst other functions, have been given their marching orders with a view to further diminishing the number of external bodies responsible for supporting the education system.  Similarly in the further and higher education sectors, budgets for both revenue and capital projects are being reduced.

The Academies Bill was introduced in the House of Lords in late May with an expectation of another piece of legislation in the autumn.  The Coalition Government has heralded a shift in emphasis away from the wider agenda of Every Child Matters back to a focus on schools.  This has been most visible in the ‘rebranding’ of the Department for Children, Schools and Families to the Department for Education.

Despite these early policy initiatives, the future for capital investment in schools and more widely in education is still unclear.  As yet, there has been no statement on how programmes such as Building Schools for the Future will fare under the new financial and political regime.  So what’s in store for investment in schools?  What are the possible changes that the new Government could be considering?

Firstly, let’s look at procurement.  At present, the current arrangements for procuring new capital projects is dominated by a number of frameworks and structures.  The framework for building academies has recently been re-let and it sits alongside the local education partnership (LEP) procurement process that is used for the majority of Building Schools for the Future programme.  Of the two approaches, the first is quicker and requires less investment in bid costs.  Both the public and private sectors have found the LEP route increasingly expensive requiring complex supply chains and consortia and a team of local authority officers and external consultants to support schools and local authorities.  Despite the promise of LEPs being a vehicle for delivering wider regeneration programmes (including the rebuild of primary schools), in reality very few have done more than begun to deliver the rebuilding of secondary schools.

The new Government may also take a look at the different routes for funding capital investment.  Under the BSF programme, there was the potential for significant investment in new schools using PFI as a funding route.  In contrast, the Primary Capital Programme was a grant given to local authorities and the college rebuilding programme was also based on direct funding from the Learning and Skills Council.  Given the reduction in public spending, there may be a shift towards remodelling and refurbishment rather than new build with an emphasis on ‘making more with less’ rather than wholesale replacement.  In particular, it is likely that more could be done by schools and colleges in their existing buildings now through spreading the funding more thinly rather than waiting for large injections of capital investment in more limited signature projects.  It is worth noting that unlike the previous academy regime, the recent new round of 2,000 academies will come with no guarantee of capital investment and as yet, it is not clear whether free schools, parent promoter and other new schools will have any funding to meet their building needs.

Another route may be the creation of generic standard designs that enable schools to choose from menu of different approaches.  Schools are always keen to learn from new buildings that already up and running and work from post occupancy evaluations and other surveys are already creating a database of good practice and what works.  Given this knowledge of school and education buildings across the industry and the public sector, a portfolio of alternative designs could be put together showing how different educational approaches, schools within schools, personalised learning, stage not age, can be reflected in education design.  New schools could ‘choose’ from this selection thus minimising costs and enabling a quicker build process. 

One of the areas that is likely to come under increasing scrutiny is the link between capital investment and raising standards.  How does a new science block, a classroom extension, a new school building contribute to improving the performance of schools?  There is already evidence from the early waves of BSF and the academies programme that changes in buildings can make a difference.  Such differences could range from increasing staff and student morale, right through to making learning spaces that are fit to teach in.  Given the new Government’s emphasis on increasing the performance of schools in combination with a tighter financial regime, there are likely to be more questions of how capital can really contribute to educational outcomes.

Perhaps the most interesting developments for the future of education and capital investment will be how the Government deals with the creation of new school providers and the demand for new school places.  At present, programmes such as BSF and primary capital are managed at a strategic level by the local authorities in conjunction with Partnerships for Schools who together oversee the procurement and development of new schools based on a series of forecasts of showing where new places will be needed and where places can be removed.  Given a new world of a mixed economy of new providers sitting outside of local authorities, how will demand for places be assessed, how will it be met and who will determine the level of capital that might be needed.  Indeed, will there be any future investment in schools and if not how will the Government deal with its commitment to support new providers? 

At the moment, these are early days for a new Government that is on course to make a fundamental shift in education in the future.  If the last month is any to go by, we will continue to see a reduction in quangos, a shift towards academies and new providers coming forward to run schools.  What will happen to capital is still far from clear and we watch the politicians and policy makers with interest.