Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-113)
MR MICHAEL
BUCHANAN, MR
DAVID LLOYD
JONES, MS
ANGELA RAWSON,
MS JANET
NEWTON AND
MR ALLAN
JARVIS
24 MAY 2006
Q100 Chairman: I have to put in terms
that we have had a statement from the Secretary of State very
recently that Academy costs are on a par with other school costs,
but Paul has every right to suggest that it is otherwise.
Mr Jarvis: I have only visited
one Academy. I was impressed with it, but I think it is one of
the ones that was anonymously criticised by Mr Holmes' remarks.
I know there is a difference of views about that building, but
I think it represents value for money in the long-term, certainly,
because it has the capability of being a wonderful learning environment
for the indefinite future.
Q101 Paul Holmes: So you would like
to see the same level of funding for all the BSFs?
Mr Jarvis: I would very much like
to see that, yes, because we have had to be, shall I say, a little
bit pragmatic with our aspirations on the Bradford programme and
there are some things we would like to have captured in the new
school design which we have not been able to.
Q102 Chairman: We have had these
two views: views where we all thought that Academies were much
more expensive than traditionally built schools, and now the statement
from the Department that they are all on a par. What is your experience
on this?
Mr Lloyd Jones: I think the Bermondsey
school that I have just mentioned came out to just under £25
million. I notice that BSF schools that we are bidding for are
very much in the same sort of ball park now. Recently we have
bid for schools in Gloucester County Council which have a price
tag of about that amount for a similar size of school, so there
is some evidence to support that, I think.
Q103 Paul Holmes: What about the
costs in Lancashire, Janet?
Ms Newton: I would say that the
costs in Lancashire are on a par with what is happening in Bradford.
I do not have any direct experience, other than hearsay, of what
the costs of an Academy are. We certainly do not have an Academy
in Lancashire.
Chairman: We will be having the Academies
in.
Q104 Paul Holmes: What are the average
costs of the programme that you are doing in Lancashire?
Ms Newton: The average costs in
CAPEX terms for a 1,050-place high school are around about £90
million.
Q105 Paul Holmes: Again, the point
you have just made, you have not got an Academy in Lancashire.
It is frequently said inside and outside Parliament that any local
authority who wants the money for a BSF scheme has got to include
an Academy or they do not get the cash. I have been told that
by the Cabinet Member in Newcastle, for example. It has happened
in Derbyshire, in Southwark. How have you got away with not having
one?
Ms Newton: I do not think it is
necessarily a case of having got away with not having one. We
started in 2002 looking at the circumstances in Burnley and Pendle,
and we developed with our schools a vision for education in the
school community, we had a series of conferences with the educational
community, the wider stakeholder groups, and we invited the DfES
to be present at our conferences. It was in the early stages of
the Building Schools for the Future, before the bid went in in
October 2003, and we were exploring collaboration, collaborative
working, federations, how many schools we should have, the location
of the schools and should we have an Academy, and one of the objectives
that we have in Burnley is parity of esteem. You will hear my
colleagues say there had been a pecking order. Parity of esteem
was one of the clear objectives that we wanted to achieve, and
there was overwhelming support from the entire education community
and stakeholders not to have an Academy in Lancashire, or in Burnley
and Pendle.
Q106 Chairman: But were you pressured
to have one in your bid by the Department?
Ms Newton: We had to robustly
indicate why an Academy would not be appropriate in Burnley and
Pendle. Lancashire is a very large authority, and what is necessary
in Burnley and Pendle as a solution may not fit elsewhere in Lancashire,
but it was not appropriate for what we were doing in East Lancashire.
Q107 Paul Holmes: So there may be
an Academy elsewhere in the county further down the line?
Ms Newton: In the fullness of
time, yes, that may well happen.
Q108 Paul Holmes: Moving away slightly
from that one, looking at Michael Buchanan's biographical notes,
there is about 15 different authorities that you have worked with,
on the notes we have got there, so you have seen an awful lot
of practice from authorities doing all sorts of different things.
We have heard lots of good examples from Bradford and from Lancashire
today. How typical do you think the two authorities we have heard
from today are compared to the wide-range you have worked with
all over the country?
Mr Buchanan: The answer is self-evident
really.
Q109 Chairman: If you say they are
bloody awful, we will have you escorted off the premises with
guards!
Mr Buchanan: I am not saying that
at all. I am saying, like any other group, they are a mixed ability
group. Some have far more capacity, imagination and drive, much
more joined-up policy on the ground than others do, some need
more support than others, and I think that may indicate why some
have been slower to bring their plans to realisation than Lancashire
or Bradford and one or two others.
Q110 Chairman: Are Lancashire and
Bradford above average, or average, or something else?
Mr Buchanan: The fact that they
have brought their projects to the state of development they have
in the space of time that they have must suggest that they are
above average, but there are a number of others. I could use one
example that we work with closely, the authority Thames-side,
who are a relatively small authority but they have got some very
ambitious plans, really energised staff thinking about this, the
authority as a whole as a single campus, embracing, despite political
opposition to the idea, the idea of Academies by taking control
of them back into the community, finding a local sponsor which
is, what, a former housing association, trying to make sense of
policy on the ground in very imaginative ways. Rather than seeing
some of the policy requirements as hurdles that could be obstacles,
actually seeing them as opportunities. There are quite a number.
Q111 Paul Holmes: Some time ago there
was a problem with Sheffield LA, talking about problems with PFI
build for schools, and they were suggesting that where the authority
used its negotiating clout across the board to do a number of
projects, then PFI could be reasonable, but where lots of individual
schools were thrown in to do it on their own, then they floundered
and you got quite bad contracts. Would that, again, fit with different
people's experience?
Mr Buchanan: Yes, different people
have different experiences of PFI. One of the obstacles (and this
may not be a direct answer to your question and I apologise if
it is not) that schools feel PFI presents is some withdrawal of
ownership of the school in terms of being able to dictate how
spaces are used, when, by whom and so on. The PFI approach is
rather different, which is to say that, for example, the core
business of a school may well be significantly enhanced if the
distractions of facilities management, letting, ground maintenance
and school building maintenance, and so on, are removed and dealt
with separately so that the heads, the teachers, the parents and
the children can get on with the business of the school, but there
are significant operational concerns. Angela has touched on the
use of classrooms, for example. Going back to a previous question,
we did some post-occupancy evaluation trialling for the DfES a
couple of years back and looked at PFI procured and traditional
design and build procured schools, recently built schools, and
there was no pattern in terms of the PFI route or the other procurement
route as to whether the schools were fit for purpose. The difference
appeared to lie more in the brief that the architects had received
than the way in which the building was procured. To give you an
example, the schools that were least successful, the people in
them that were using them—the teachers, heads, governors,
children—were saying, "This does not work as a school.
If only we had been asked the question but we were not asked that
question."
Q112 Chairman: That goes across the
different types of build. One big difference is that we were told
in Darlington that PFI meant they got it built faster rather than
slower. They could not have built it without a PFI in that timescale.
Mr Buchanan: Yes, that is true,
but it is a matter of balance. It is going back to Roberta's question
about the timescale, the lead-in time. It is very important that
Building Schools for the Future is seen as an education-led programme,
and you need to invest some time early on to make sure that the
right questions have been asked of the right people and the right
voices are feeding into this process, the vision is very clear
and achievable and that that gives rise to some specific design
challenges which form a very good brief to architects. If you
organise a thing in a very logical and sequential process, it
may take a little longer, but it is likely that David and colleagues
of his are more likely to respond to the set of design challenges
in a way that generates schools fit for purpose than if you try
to short-cut that process. You may get interesting buildings but
they will not necessarily work as schools.
Q113 Chairman: We are running out
of time. I am going to ask all of you, quickly, what single thing
do you think could improve the Building Schools for the Future
programme and make it more sustainable and more successful? Janet,
what single thing would you draw out which could be improved?
Ms Newton: I think the procurement
process. I think Partnerships for Schools have been effective
in terms of developing the standardised documents. Sometimes that
has actually led to some frustrations, because it is looking to
be a standardised model and, obviously, individual local authorities
have individual needs. The local education partnership is a new
venture and I think both the local authorities and the bidders
are having to go through quite considerable thought-processes
to see how they are going to deliver to Building Schools for the
Future. I think local authorities should go into the process with
their eyes wide open in terms of the resources required. There
is a significant financial requirement or commitment from local
authorities to deliver Building Schools for the Future, and it
is not something that a local authority can bolt on to existing
day jobs.
Ms Rawson: I reiterate the point
I made earlier: if this is about education transformation, to
recognise that as far as the funding available to support the
education transformation beyond just the production of buildings.
Mr Jarvis: Absolutely, the programme
needs to be needs-led, not funding led. At the moment it is too
formulaic. It needs to be focused on what the local individual
need is both at school level and at local authority level, not
driven by funding that is derived from a central formula.
Mr Lloyd Jones: My point would
be getting together early enough in the project and getting all
the key players round the table and developing a brief together,
getting it right at the outset. If you do that, the project will
be successful. If you get it wrong and you are having to backtrack
downstream, then you are only going to come up with problems.
To touch on procurement, we have been working on a couple of partnering
contracts which we have found quite productive where you get the
contractor in on day one with the consultants, with the school
and with the sponsors, and that has worked pretty well so far.
Mr Buchanan: I would like to see
one development that seems to me to be notably absent, particularly
in terms of such a significant amount of public money, and that
is some rigorous longitudinal study based on the impact of that
investment. You talk about value for money. I think if it is a
transformational programme, then it is reasonable to expect, first
of all, there to be a common understanding of what transformation
and education means, secondly, to be able to define it in terms
of some indicators, and thirdly, to be rigorous and systematic
about how it is measured to see whether in fact, over time, over
10 or 15 years, that government money has been well spent and
has brought about the transformation that it was intended to.
Chairman: Thank you. I hope you have
seen this session as the very best kind of BSF: early consultation
with the experts. We hope to build on that an excellent Report.
That will only work if you remain in contact with us. If you feel
that we have not explored areas that you could have told us about,
do email us or contact us. We would be very grateful for a relationship
that lasts through to a higher added value Report out of this
Committee. Thank you for your time.
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