School building system ‘failing’

Some schools awaiting rebuilds rely on temporary classrooms

The system for school building in England is not fit for purpose and new schools should be built to a standard blueprint, a review has said.

The government-commissioned review by Dixons director Sebastian James said value for money was consistently poor.

It said Labour’s £55bn Building Schools for the Future scheme was “expensive” and did not help the neediest schools fast enough.

Some 700 school rebuilds were stopped when the scheme was axed last year.

The review looked at planning, funding and building new schools, and refurbishing and maintaining existing ones.

Mr James said the overwhelming majority of people who had given evidence said the current system was “complex, time-consuming, expensive and opaque”.

Savings of up to 30% could be made by streamlining it, he said.

He said that, under BSF, the public sector had “failed consistently to get the value it should have done”.

The scheme, which saw several flagship, innovative schools designed and built, produced designs that were “far too bespoke”, the review said.

A “lack of expertise” among those procuring the buildings – often head teachers – meant there was little opportunity to lower costs or improve building methods, it found.

The review also said that other processes for funding capital projects “diverted funds to those most adept at winning bids rather than necessarily to those in most need”.

The system, particularly BSF, led to “islands” of expenditure in some areas, “whilst extremely dilapidated schools” in others “remained untouched”, Mr James said.

He recommended that new buildings should be based on a set of “standardised drawings” which “will incorporate the latest thinking on educational requirements”.

A new central body should be set up to negotiate contracts with the construction industry, while local authorities should be allocated “notional budgets” which they would use to develop their own local strategies, the review said.

The Department for Education, however, should set aside a centrally held budget for free schools – schools set up by parents or other community groups under a policy championed by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Better data should be gathered on the condition of school buildings, so that money could be allocated based on the state of existing premises and the need for new places, it added.

Mr Gove welcomed the report: “We must have a system for school building which is much simpler, less bureaucratic and which targets priority projects,” he said.

Ty Goddard, director of the British Council for School Environments (BCSE), said there was “much to be welcomed” in the review’s conclusions.

“A simplification of the rules, regulations and processes will help everyone,” he said.

The review was commissioned in the wake of the government’s decision to scrap the Building Schools for the Future scheme.

The move sparked an outcry among teachers, councillors and pupils alike, many of whom had worked hard on developing the projects.

After announcing the end of the scheme last July, Mr Gove had to apologise to council officials after a number of errors appeared in the list of schools he published that were to proceed.

At that point a decision had not been made on 150 school projects left in limbo, with a decision still to be made on whether they would proceed.

Some 75 of these schools, mostly academies, were later told their developments would go ahead.

In February, a High Court judge ruled that the the decision to axe projects in six local authority areas was “unlawful” because of a lack of consultation.

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