House of Commons - Education and Skills

Select Committee on Education and Skills Seventh Report

1 Introduction

Background to Building Schools for the Future

9. Building Schools for the Future is an immensely ambitious programme designed to rebuild or refurbish all secondary schools in England over 15 years at a cost of £45 billion. It is the most comprehensive of a number of initiatives to improve the schools estate that the Government has introduced since 1997.

10. When the Labour Government came to power in 1997, education was one of its main policy priorities. In his first Budget Statement on 2 July 1997, the Chancellor of the Exchequer allocated an additional £1 billion in revenue spending for education for 1998-99, as well as committing the Government to spending £1.3 billion over the course of the Parliament on capital expenditure for schools. He said:

"Economic success tomorrow will depend on investing in our schools today. But at the present rate of progress, many of our children will be educated for the 21st century in classrooms built in the 19th. Today, 1 million pupils are being educated in classrooms built before the first world war.

If our schools are to educate for the needs of the 21st-century economy, they must themselves become schools that are fit to learn in and equipped for the 21st century […] I want schools not just to repair the roofs and the fabric, but to acquire the modern equipment and computers that they need. I have therefore decided to allocate cash from the remaining proceeds of the windfall tax for an immediate programme of capital investment to equip our schools with the infrastructure, technology and the bright modern classrooms that they need."[3]

11. In the 1998 Budget, a further £90 million of capital funding was allocated: £35 million to remove the outside toilets still being used at 600 schools; £15 million to allow up to 500 schools to replace or improve their inefficient heating systems; and £40 million to provide extra classrooms to help the Government to deliver on its pledge that no child of 5, 6 or 7 should be taught in a class of more than 30 children.[4] This was presented largely as the Government intending to address a backlog of maintenance and repairs in the schools sector, although the DfEE did note that the improvements to heating systems would reduce fuel used and assist in reducing carbon dioxide emissions.[5]

12. In 1999 and 2000, various further announcements were made in what was known as the New Deal for Schools, all of which focused on the repairs backlog and the replacement of temporary classrooms. For example, in announcing how £600 million in the fourth round of New Deal for Schools funding was to be allocated in April 2000, the Department highlighted the fact that it would allow for the replacement of 1,500 "of the worst condition temporary classrooms".[6] The then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, Rt Hon David Blunkett MP, said:

"[…] I am confident that the New Deal for Schools, along with our other capital programmes, will make a big dent in the backlog that has developed over the last 20 years and help our schools make a strong start in the 21st century.

"We are determined to improve the quality of the environment in which teachers teach and pupils learn, and address the scandal of crumbling schools. This investment will go a long way to providing the right conditions and at the same time play a part in regenerating local economies and boosting the surrounding communities."[7]

13. The capital programme took on a different dimension later in 2000. In September, the Department announced capital expenditure of £7.8 billion for the years 2001-02 to 2003-04. As well as money for extensive repairs and modernisation, and a sum given directly to the head of each school for more routine expenditure, the funding was to be used to completely transform or replace 650 schools, both primary and secondary.[8] By this time the Government had committed approximately £10 billion to be spent on school repairs and rebuilding since coming into office.

14. In January 2001, when announcing further details of this investment, the then Secretary of State also drew attention to research undertaken by Pricewaterhouse Coopers which indicated that "Capital investment impacts positively on pupil performance, particularly in terms of improving teacher morale and motivating pupils".[9] The research documents themselves were quite cautious about the link, but did say "[…]on balance, the research suggests that, where there are statistically significant effects of capital on performance, these are positive".[10]

THE INTRODUCTION OF BUILDING SCHOOLS FOR THE FUTURE

15. The next shift in the Government's thinking was signalled in speech by David Miliband, then Minister of State for School Standards, in October 2002. Rather than just repairing and replacing inadequate buildings, the redevelopment of schools was put forward explicitly as a means of improving educational standards. He said that the Government's aim going into the future was to "focus the Department on developing capacity at local level to change children's lives, and devolve resource and power to local level". Within that overall aim, "On the capital side, it means moving from tackling the backlog of outside toilets and leaking roofs to put the £3bn building and ICT budget, which will rise to £4.5bn by 2005-06, at the service of educational transformation".[11]

16. Just four months later, in February 2003, the consultation document on BSF was published and the project to redevelop every secondary school in England was born. In the foreword, Charles Clarke, then Secretary of State, and David Miliband said that "Schools should inspire learning. They should nurture every pupil and member of staff. They should be a source of pride and a practical resource for the community". They added that the consultation paper set out an exciting vision: "It is about using capital investment to deliver much higher standards of education and to transform learning and working environments in schools".[12] As we shall see, the theme of transforming learning has resonated strongly through the programme ever since, although there is no clearly set out, well-developed and widely understood explanation of what transforming learning consists of and is designed to achieve.

17. The launch document for BFS, published in February 2004, confirmed the Government's aims and gave information about the procurement being brought forward in waves of local authorities. It continued to be explicit about the use of the BSF as a tool for educational transformation. In neither document, however, was there any mention of environmental or any other kind of sustainability.

18. It is worth emphasising the scale and scope of BSF; there is no project like it anywhere in the world. Not since the huge Victorian and post-war building waves has there been investment in our school capital stock on this scale, and of course the potential for new ways of learning has moved on considerably since then. Investment in the three decades before BSF was announced had been minimal, meaning that there were very few architects, procurement experts or head teachers in the system with experience to build on. Even the research base has little to tell us about how we should design sustainable learning environments for the future.[13] We welcome the ambitions of the programme and intend this report to assist in maximising its effect on improving the quality and sustainability of the environments for learning in this country.

The current situation

19. This then is the Government's vision: to renew all secondary schools and install high quality ICT as a means of transforming the learning experience and raise attainment. Three years on, however, it is difficult to assess how the project lived up to the vision so far. This is principally because no mainstream BSF school is yet open.[14] In the BSF launch document, the plan was for the first school to open in mid 2006, with 100 schools open by the end of 2007, and 200 by the end of 2008.[15] The first BSF school, the Speedwell School in Bristol, will now open in September this year. There have therefore been delays across the whole programme. As the DfES said in its memorandum:

"There has been significant slippage in BSF projects in waves 1-3, with the majority of projects behind the ideal project timelines. Key common factors behind such slippage include: lack of capacity or experience in delivering large projects in local authorities; insufficient corporate support and leadership; insufficient involvement of school improvement teams (as opposed to solely property) at local levels; inaccurate pupil place planning (omission of SEN numbers has for example been a common flaw); planning obstacles, including unavailability of sites in London in particular; difficulties in agreeing Education Visions at a local level; and poor stakeholder engagement or consultation."[16]

20. Tim Byles, who took over as Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools, the body charged with delivering the national programme, in the autumn of 2006, was quoted in the Times Educational Supplement in January as saying:

"Everyone across government accepts that the early targets were not based on any experience and were not realistic. We will reset the baseline this year so we have realistic objectives […]. The authorities that were chosen first were those with the greatest needs and some of those have found it difficult to deliver […]. But we are significantly reducing the problems and I am confident that we can deliver."[17]

This delay has been picked up in the press, with the clear message being sent that the project is failing.[18]

21. Other concerns have been expressed. The Design Council warned that if good design and a good design process were not integrated properly into the process then the schools that are built would be unlikely to be fit for purpose for the long term. David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council, told us:

"In the end this building programme is happening, it is rolling out, it has a timetable against it, there are some risks in the system and everybody is going to watch out that those risks do not end up messing the whole system up. There is a real possibility that we shall not get the innovation and creativity that we really want. If we want to have great schools that are fit not just for the next ten years, but 50 or 100 years—and of course our Victorian schools have lasted over 100 years—then what are we actually going to do now that is going to ensure that the sort of schools that we creating are going to endure and support us in the long term? That means some really smart, clever thinking upfront and once the ball is rolling and the procurement exercise has started, it is going to be too late, which is where we have been advocating early design processes."[19]

Our inquiry has led us to recognise the importance of early planning and so to believe that delay in the programme is a less significant risk to its success than inadequate preliminary thinking and clarity at a local level about what is required.

22. The place of sustainability in the project has also been a cause of concern. As mentioned above, neither the BSF consultation document nor the launch document discussed sustainability. The Sustainable Development Commission told us:

"[…] while a vision for sustainable schools has recently been published by the DfES, its implications in terms of the design of school buildings has not been sufficiently thought through. The Government is not yet aware whether its capital investment programmes will result in the schools estate producing higher or lower carbon emissions, nor what the impact will be on water demand, waste production, traffic or other environmental factors. The communications of the delivery body, Partnerships for Schools, make scant reference to sustainable development. This is extremely worrying."[20]

The aim of the report

23. It is clear that, given the current position of the BSF programme, we cannot yet make any definitive judgements about its success or otherwise. It is behind schedule, but there are opportunities for it to catch up with the timetable, and it is still possible that it will be completed within the broad fifteen year plan. Even if it is possible to complete the project in the overall fifteen year timescale, however, it is far from clear that it would be sensible to do so, or whether the main concern should rather be to complete it appropriately.

24. What we are seeking to do in this report is to comment on work in progress and to make recommendations about the ways in which the process might be improved. At this stage of the BSF project, it seems to us that there are three key areas which need to be examined:

Is the planning and procurement process working effectively, and if not, how does it need to be changed?

Is educational transformation, clearly one of the main aims of the Government in establishing Building Schools for the Future, really at the heart of the process?

Has sustainability been adequately defined, and does it have a sufficiently high profile?

3 HC Deb, 2 July 1997, col 316. Back

4 DfES press notice, 1998/0143, 19 March 1998, Blunkett spells end of Victorian era in English schools. Back

5 ibid. Back

6 DfES press notice 2000/0160, 11 April 2000, 1,500 temporary classrooms will be replaced over the next two years- Blunkett. Back

7 ibid. Back

8 DfES press notice 2000/0410, 27 September 2000, Schools capital spending will be nearly£8 billion over next three years. Back