MPs voice new BSF fears

11 June, 2009 | By Jim Dunton

The Government’s flagship Building Schools for the Future programme will struggle to meet its revised completion date and lacks a framework to measure its educational success, watchdog MPs have warned.

The Public Accounts Select Committee said in a new report that the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DSCF) and project managers Partnerships for Schools (PfS) had been “over-optimistic” in their goals, and had failed to explain what educational success looked like for the programme.

The programme to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in England is currently projected to go up to £10bn over its original £45bn budget, and had constructed less than one-quarter of the 200 schools expected by the end of last year alone.

Edward Leigh

Source: Official website

Committee chair Edward Leigh said the result had been widespread disappointment with the rate at which schools were being completed that had damaged confidence in DCSF’s ability to complete the programme even by its revised date of 2023.

“The department and Partnerships for Schools (PfS) must dispel the air of complacency which surrounds them - by indicating in detail how they propose to speed up the pace of delivery and finish the programme on time,” he said.

“It’s going to be a tall order to double the number of schools being procured and constructed.

“The department should also explain how it is going to measure the success of the programme in contributing to improved educational attainment and the life chances of children.

“We need to know how far the estimated £52 billion to £55 billion spent will deliver the envisaged educational outcomes.

“And schools and local authorities themselves should be provided with more help than they have been given so far on how to achieve these educational objectives.”

Other key conclusions :

* Money has been wasted on consultants to make up for skills shortages

* The value for money of Local Education Parterships is unproved

* Schools and local authorities are not getting enough Government support

* Councils need better cost comparators to judge the value for money of each project

PfS chief executive Tim Byles said the committee was “looking at BSF through the rear view mirror” based on out-of date evidence and that the programme had “moved on considerably” since the National Audit Office (NAO) gathered the evidence MPs based some of their findings on..

He also insisted that those behind the programme were not complacent.

“As we have said for two years now, the early assumptions – made before the programme began – were over optimistic,” he said.

“In 2005, new targets were set and since then BSF has met or exceeded the target for schools openings.”

Mr Byles said 300 schools would be in construction by 2011, exceeding an NAO target of 200, and that the “vast majority of projects would be completed by 2020, the programmes original deadline.