By Richard Johnstone | 12 March 2013
Delays in the government’s school restoration programme are costing councils millions of pounds in repair bills, the Local Government Association said today.
The £2.4bn Priority School Building Programme was announced last May after Education Secretary Michael Gove scrapped the previous government’s Building Schools for the Future scheme.
Gove said 261 schools qualified for the funding, which would come both from government and the PF2, the replacement for the Private Finance Initiative for investment in public works.
However, the LGA said many schools earmarked for rebuilding were still unaware when work would begin. A survey of the successful bids found procurement had started in only 19 cases. A further 92 said the Education Funding Agency, which will provide government funding, had been in touch, but this contact had been ‘basic’. Around 66 schools had not heard anything.
Contracts for building work were unlikely to be awarded until 2015, meaning work was unlikely to be completed until at least 2016, six years after the scheme was first announced, the LGA said.
As a result, councils had been left with repair bills of millions of pounds to keep existing schools open.
For example, Devon County Council has estimated it will need to spend £2.5m on ‘urgent health and safety works’ for eight schools that are due to receive Priority School Building funding. Another authority, North Lincolnshire, has already spent £1.4m on maintenance.
Suffolk County Council has spent £1.1m on essential works for the two worst school buildings in the county, while Bury Council has set aside £2m from its emergency fund to cover the potential cost of essential repairs at three schools.
David Simmonds, chair of the LGA's children and young people board, said the government must ‘get on’ with the job of awarding contracts.
‘The announcement of much-needed funding to fix hundreds of the country’s most crumbling schools was as a positive move, but that was last summer and many parents are still none the wiser about when their child’s school will be brought up to scratch,’ he added.
‘In the current tough economic climate we know it's not going to be possible to rebuild every school from scratch and councils aren't asking for gold plated taps and state-of-the-art luxury staffrooms. But heads and parents are telling us that the condition of some schools is so bad it is getting in the way of providing a good education. Despite the hard work of teachers, the possibility that children could excel in such poor surroundings is a challenge too far.’
Responding to the survey, a Department for Education spokeswoman said it had always been clear the programme would take five years to procure.
She added: ‘It is not true to say that the Priority Schools Building Programme is delayed. We have already appointed contractors for the first two batches of capital funded schools and we are tendering for the remaining capital funded schools. The first privately financed projects will be released to market shortly. All 261 schools have received confirmation of when we will start working with them.
‘We are spending more on school buildings in this Parliament than the previous government spent in its first two Parliaments combined – more than £17bn of taxpayers money and £2bn of private investment. It is essential that we take time to secure the right finance arrangement for each school and the best possible deal for the taxpayer, and we are looking at a number of options including a bond finance solution.’
• Meanwhile, the LGA has reiterated calls for the government to devolve power over skills and training to local areas, as well as lifting the borrowing cap for housebuilding under the Housing Revenue Account system.
The group’s Budget submission to Chancellor George Osborne also calls for City Deals to be offered to all areas that want one.
LGA chair Sir Merrick Cockell said: ‘The chancellor can get better value from existing budgets if he undertakes an ambitious devolution of powers to local areas. The measures we propose could cut youth unemployment by 20%, deliver up to 60,000 new homes and offer businesses much more effective support than can be provided from Whitehall. The end result is more growth and a swifter economic recovery.
‘The sluggish economy and the chancellor’s deficit reduction plans mean the prospect of new money in this Budget is low. That means the onus is on him to make sure the available money is spent effectively. Local government can help him wring more value out of every pound.’
