Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580-599)
MR CHRIS
ARCHER, MR
JIM BURKE
AND MS
CAROLINE MORLAND
1 NOVEMBER 2006
Q580 Paul Holmes: The figures for
the cost of building new schools, on average we are told that
a BSF school is about £14.5 million and that an Academy is
about £25 million. The Government quibble about this. In
Nottingham's experience what is the cost of the two areas of schools
that you have either built or are about to, and what was Jim's
cost?
Mr Archer: Obviously, I do not
know about Jim's cost. The figures that we are looking at obviously
vary according to the size of the school, but I would have said
slightly more than the £14 million, nearer towards the high
teens of millions for the average type of comprehensive school
that we are going to build.
Q581 Paul Holmes: What about the
three Academies?
Mr Archer: The Academies are going
to be built to the same funding formula. Back to the previous
question, managing that tension between expectation and reality,
I think, could be quite difficult.
Q582 Paul Holmes: What was the cost
of your Academy?
Mr Burke: Capital cost was just
over £16 million, £16.5 million. That is for 7,800 square
metres.
Q583 Paul Holmes: Does that include
all the design costs?
Mr Burke: There are the fees on
top of that. In total I think everything came to around £20
million with the fees.
Q584 Mr Marsden: What proportion
of your students at the Academy are special needs or children
with disabilities, would you say? What sort of numbers?
Mr Burke: On the special needs
register we have approximately one-third of the school. Statementing
is quite low, about 2%, which is fairly average.
Q585 Mr Marsden: The reason I ask the
question is we are talking about sustainability, and access is
part of that as well. I just wondered, accepting they are not
all going to be in a wheelchair or have that sort of physical
disability, to what extent access was built into the design process
and to what extent you are finding fewer difficulties in accommodating
them compared with your experiences in traditional schools previously?
Mr Burke: Of course the building
has to comply with DDA regulations, which it does, so there is
no problem in terms of physical access. I think the issue is curricular
access given the large number of youngsters with special needs
that we have. That is where most of our energies are aimed. In
terms of the predecessor school, it is very similar, because the
predecessor school was similarly in a disadvantaged area with
similar numbers of youngsters with special needs. What we are
finding though is that we can far greater meet the needs of our
youngsters with special needs in a learning environment such as
we have with the emphasis on technology, just with the whole building.
It is a lighter, airier building and it is more conducive to learning.
There is no doubt that a building can have a direct impact on
youngsters learning, particularly youngsters with special needs
whose needs generally, certainly in the predecessor school, were
not well served.
Q586 Chairman: Do the students love
the school?
Mr Burke: Absolutely, they are
very proud of the school. When we have visitors, which we do regularly,
the youngsters take the visitors round and, without exception,
we have had terrific feedback about how knowledgeable, how keen,
how proud they are of the school, so it has made a fantastic difference
in terms of self-esteem.
Q587 Chairman: In your part of Liverpool,
was there ever any thought of making a multi-faith Academy embracing
other faiths.
Mr Burke: Well, I would argue
that ours is.
Q588 Chairman: It is dual.
Mr Burke: It is dual, it is Catholic/Church
of England, but really it is Church of England/community. So,
in fact, if you look at percentages, it is somewhere in the region
of 50% Catholic youngsters, probably 15% Church of England and
the rest are youngsters of no faith and other faiths.
Q589 Chairman: Do you have a substantial
number of Muslim children?
Mr Burke: We are increasingly
attracting some, because the predecessor school was a Catholic
school. We are now joint-faith but our admissions area is the
immediate area of Kensington and Fairfield where there are a significant
number of youngsters with English as an additional language, so
our numbers will increase as the Academy grows.
Q590 Chairman: Are you totally happy
with your architect and your builder?
Mr Burke: Yes, without a doubt.
Chairman: That is a good recommendation.
Q591 Stephen Williams: A quick question
to Mr Burke first and maybe the other witnesses as well. In these
sessions when we talk about sustainability we tend to look at
the carbon footprint, how the school contributes to current learning
patterns or the wow factor for the children, that you have essentially
just mentioned, but "built to last" ought to be part
of sustainability as well. How confident are you that the children
of Fairfield and Kensington, I think you said, in Liverpool will
still be going through the gates of this school in 2106?
Mr Burke: Do you mean will it
be attractive to them?
Q592 Stephen Williams: Will the building
still be there?
Mr Burke: The concrete structure
has a 200-year lifespan, we know the wood has a 70-year lifespan,
and so in terms of sustainability I think we have got reasonable
value for money.
Q593 Stephen Williams: So the wood
is there for the next 70 years?
Mr Burke: Yes.
Q594 Chairman: What do you make of
the suggestion that all schools should have sprinkler systems
put in when they build them? Is that part of sustainability? Do
you have them in your school?
Mr Burke: No, we do not.
Q595 Chairman: Is that not an horrendous
cost for insurance if you do not have a sprinkler system?
Mr Burke: You mean because we
do not have a sprinkler system, did the costs go up? Not at all.
We are a concrete mass school.
Q596 Chairman: It is just that we
were told that many schools are not having sprinkler systems,
and this Committee has been told that every school really should
have them, and that in fact the payback, in terms of reduced insurance
premiums, is that you will have paid for it in six years. Chris,
what is your philosophy on this? Is it part of sustainability
to have sprinkler systems built into a modern school?
Mr Archer: Our thinking at the
moment is that we probably will, driven by our insurers to make
that a likely necessity, yes.
Q597 Chairman: We visit schools in
terms of all sorts of inquiries and we go to some newly built
where they say, not just sprinkler systems, "We have cut
this out, we have cut that out", and they seem to be concentrating
on the upfront capital costs, whereas they are not looking at
what the payback would be in terms of reduced energy bills and
insurance premiums over a 10, 20-year lifetime. Is that something
that you recognise, Chris?
Mr Archer: I think there is a
definite danger that the long-term is going to be sacrificed for
the short-term. Obviously, PFI contracts lead you towards certainly
a 25-year period and considering sustainability over that period
of time, but there is not any doubt, the talk that we have had
of a once in a generation opportunity to renew, and so on, means
that we have to get this right for a sustained period of time.
We have got to imagine that these buildings are still going to
be occupied in 100 years' time, like some of the Victorian ones
we have talked about, and therefore we have got to do our best
to ensure that they are within the value for money and the timeframe
that we have got.
Q598 Chairman: Have you got a sustainability
champion in Nottingham?
Mr Archer: We have got a member
who is a sustainability champion who, I have to say, makes demands
on the BSF team on a constant and regular basis, yes.
Q599 Chairman: He sounds like a good
lad to me. It is probably a woman actually.
Mr Archer: It is not in fact,
it is our Deputy Leader.
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