Examination of Witnesses (Questions 640-659)
MS SALLY
BROOKS, MR
MARTIN LIPSON
AND MR
TIM BYLES
6 DECEMBER 2006
Q640 Chairman: You have not answered
me about the private sector. Is there the capacity in the construction
industry and are there the specialists in these things to do what
needs to be done?
Mr Byles: If you are asking me
a question about the capacity of the construction industry, the
answer is, yes, there is that capacity, and we are looking very
carefully at the impact of large-scale investments and the known
impact on the construction industry around the country as we look
at the judgments going forward of the effects of BSF, which is
a very large programme but, in terms of the overall scale of the
construction industry in this country, is not predominant, but
those things do need to balance. Where there is a particular skill
shortage is to do with project management expertise to local government,
and that is why we are particularly looking at ways of drawing
in the people who have that kind of expertise perhaps in other
sectors who could apply it into this one, we are looking at capacity
building programmes in the public sector to manage these programmes,
but I am not seeing the kind of constraint that I think you are
asking about in the private sector delivery perhaps.
Q641 Chairman: I remember very well
that when PFI really got started in the educational sector the
very people you are talking about were the scarce resource; you
could not get them for love nor money. We are talking about a
situation in this country where we already have scarce skills
in this area, and you have got the Olympics in 2012 with an enormous
draw on that kind of capacity. Are you still sure that you are
going to have the right quality of people to deliver on this?
Mr Byles: In terms of private
sector construction capacity to deliver, I am feeling much more
reassured now. There has been some recent modelling by the Office
of Government Commerce, in fact, on exactly this question, and
I believe their work is going to be published soon; and that goes
exactly to the point about which you are asking, and that is why
I am feeling more reassured about that point. I am actually more
concerned about the project management capacity in local government.
Q642 Chairman: Let me bring in Martin.
Mr Lipson: Before I comment on
this, perhaps I could try and answer a question you asked earlier
about the origins of Building Schools for the Future, because
I was around then and my colleagues were not. In fact, it did
not get started in a rush at all. There was about 18 months of
preparation going on in the Department when they set up the shadow
organisation, which then became Partnerships for Schools, and
we in the Local Government Organisation were—
Q643 Chairman: What year was that?
Mr Lipson: That was 2003. We started
work on it in 2003. It did not get launched, effectively, until—
Q644 Chairman: The historian in me
(and I am sure Gordon shares this) wants to know when did you
know there was going to be a Building Schools for the Future programme?
Mr Lipson: I think at the end
of 2002, early 2003.
Q645 Chairman: Who told you?
Mr Lipson: The Department. We
have close working relationships with the Department because we
have been supporting the PFI programme that you mentioned, including
Kirklees, for over eight years previous to this, so we know a
great deal about this area and the local authorities involved.
Q646 Chairman: You understood that
this was a Treasury-led initiative, did you?
Mr Lipson: No, I am not quite
sure that is where it came from.
Q647 Chairman: Where do you think
it came from then?
Mr Lipson: My impression is it
came from the Department. It probably came from various parts
of government, but it emerged as a very strong concept.
Ms Brooks: It came from David
Miliband in January 2003. He was the Schools Minister and it was
his baby, his project. When I arrived I worked closely with David
Miliband and he was passionate about it. The basis of it was,
in fact, the LIFT model in the NHS, which was the first of this
kind of global partnership.
Q648 Chairman: The Minister for Schools,
who is a middle ranking minister, you are saying it was his idea,
with a £45 billion spend, and he had not had long conversations
with the Treasury before?
Ms Brooks: He had had long conversations
with the Treasury, yes?
Mr Lipson: I think a lot of the
work in working out the detail of how this would be done was done
by another organisation called Partnerships UK, which had put
together the ideas and is the half owner of Tim's organisation,
Partnership for Schools. There has been quite a lot of work done
to put that idea together. I just wanted to correct any impression
that it was done in a rush, and we were very pleased with the
extent to which local government was involved in the discussions
in that early stage. Turning to the point that we have been discussing
more recently, I completely endorse my colleague's concerns about
the capacity in the local government sector because I think what
we have here is a huge programme, which is very exciting, and
a lot of the local authorities involved in the programme are,
indeed, very excited about the possibility of transforming secondary
education and they are very bought into the ideas, but they are
finding it difficult in the relatively limited market, which you
have referred to, of experts and professionals. With lots of projects
going on at the same time nationally, there is a limited pool
of really good experts. So that is, I think, one point. One point
that perhaps has not come out very clearly is that it is the local
authority that has to assemble the procurement team. It is they
that employ all the advisers. They use in-house expertise when
they have got it. The larger authorities do have sustainability
experts, they do have procurement experts, but smaller authorities
have to buy that expertise in, and I would say that it is a limited
pool that they are fishing in to get the really good people to
help them with their projects, and that is critical for the success
of the future generation of schools. If they do not get the right
expertise, then you will not get a very good result, and we have
seen some evidence of that.
Q649 Fiona Mactaggart: I wanted to
come in on the point that Tim was making. He was talking about
the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) doing a further report.
I was quite struck when I looked at the OGC report on construction,
demand and capacity that it did not, I thought, really consider
Building Schools for the Future as a kind of big elephant in this
pot. It talked a lot about Crossrail and about the Olympics, and
so on. One of the things that I was anxious about was that this
programme has almost been a ghost creeping into this thing. Are
you saying the OGC has now really recognised the size of Building
Schools for the Future and its impact, because it has not really
shown that yet?
Mr Byles: I am not aware of the
history you are just describing. All I can tell you about is the
discussions I had last week with the people in OGC who are producing
this analysis (and I believe have produced, but I am not sure
if it is going to be published) which does take into account the
impact of BSF in this wider world.
Q650 Mr Marsden: I wonder if I could
start with you, Tim Byles. I want to try and get clearer in my
mind the precise nature and remit of Partnership for Schools.
Certainly, if I look at your background before coming to it, it
is a very solid and a very impressive one in the procurement sector,
is it not?
Mr Byles: Thank you.
Q651 Mr Marsden: What about the skills
that Partnership for Schools has to be an adviser as opposed to
a procurer?
Mr Byles: There are a range of
skills in the organisation. Some are to do with helping local
authorities establish their educational vision, as Sally has told
you about, so we have people drawn from that sector in the organisation,
and it is their job to work alongside local authorities to produce
this strategy for change. There is a team of people who are experts
in procurement and in the establishment and closure of deals such
as private finance type transactions, and they provide very specialist
advice at the back end of this process on putting those things
together. We have a legal team who are specialists in documentation
(in particular the use of standard documentation that can be used
as a basis for these transactions) that can help with training
and development of all participants in working that through, and
we also have a design team who are working very closely with colleagues
in CABE, for example, to make sure that the design inputs are
appropriate and tested appropriately at the early stage. So, we
have expertise that goes from the visioning process to the closure
process, and we try to tune our intervention alongside the capacity
of the local authority in question, in particular to carry these
things forward, because there is enormous variation in the knowledge,
skills and ability of individual local authorities.
Q652 Mr Marsden: As we have already
heard. Structurally that sounds fine, but in the reality of pressured
projects, particularly the ones we are talking about, particularly
the examples the Chairman has given, how are you going to make
sure that the holistic concept of what you are trying to do does
not get lost in the pressures to deliver? Your position, as I
say, is key to that. How are you going to make sure that you are
not just Mr Power Driver and you remain Mr Motivator.
Mr Byles: Thank you. I will memorise
both of those two things. Vigilance is an example of it and so
is assessment. I have mentioned this readiness to deliver assessment,
and, as we move forward into wave four, what we are establishing
with each local authority is a memorandum of understanding between
Partnerships for Schools and the local authority in question where
we are all very clear about what we all think the starting point
is and confident in the knowledge that through time circumstances
will change.
Q653 Mr Marsden: Can I interrupt
you there because we have had this before. Do you see your principal
client in this context as the local authority or as the school?
Mr Byles: I am not sure I would
describe it as a principal client. I certainly see us having a
key relationship with the local authority and also with individual
schools, but much of our work is centred through the local authority
and with various schools, in some cases a very large number of
schools, that make up a wave area within a local authority, but
that means that as we are getting the vision part right, if I
go back to the beginning of the process, we are sitting down with
people from each of those schools as well as the director of children's
services trying to take a view across the whole estate so that
we can reach a common view about what educational transformation
actually means across the board.
Q654 Mr Marsden: I was going to come
on to educational transformation and come to you, if I may, Sally.
It is a lovely phrase "educational transformation",
and you have given some examples of what you think it means, but
does it actually reflect also a differing approach within the
Department to types of education? What I mean by that is, is it
based on the provision of different sorts of schools rather than
some of the rather vaguer concepts that we are talking about in
terms of personalised learning which you yourself have already
said is something still to be defined?
Ms Brooks: Yes, I think it is
based on departmental policy, which includes provision of a range
of different kinds of schools, provision of choice and diversity.
I think (to go back to the question: "Who is the client?")
under the White Paper the local authority is the strategic commissioner
of education in its area but not necessarily the direct provider.
So, as strategic commissioner, we would expect a local authority,
through BSF, to commission a range of diverse providers of education.
That is what we expect, including, where appropriate, Academies,
including the expansion of successful schools, including bringing
new faith providers and others into that area.
Q655 Mr Marsden: That is very much
at the heart of this educational transformation as well as the
practical things about having broader multi-use spaces and the
personalised learning agenda and all the rest of it?
Ms Brooks: Yes, as well as extended
schools, extended hours, community use—as well as all those
things.
Q656 Mr Marsden: I am glad you mentioned
that because I would like, if we get a chance, to return to how
far this programme is embedded in extended hours and community
use. I want to pick you up on this point about educational transformation
and also perhaps to ask Martin Lipson to comment. I have been
looking at the two written submissions that you have given. I
will be kind and say there is a degree of creative tension between
you and local government on this. In your paper you talk about
BSF, including Academies and BSF plans, and you are very bold
about it. You say, "Projects that contain innovative Academy
proposals within their plans are likely to progress more rapidly
to approval", but in the paper that has been submitted from
4ps they say, again fairly boldly, "Transformation has a
chance of succeeding in some authorities, but the inclusion of
Academies is already getting in the way of a strategic approach
to BSF for some authorities. As a result, we believe Government
should suppress any further major educational initiatives while
authorities are developing and implementing their strategic approach
through BSF." How do you reconcile that? To the outsider
it looks like you have got horns locked there.
Ms Brooks: I think in the early
days of Academies, when BSF was just starting and Academies were
being delivered separately, there was tension, I accept that absolutely.
What we have done (and again this is about learning as we go along)
is we have now integrated the delivery of Academies into the Building
Schools for the Future programme and PfS are now delivering that;
so I think it has got a lot better. In the early days the Department
was dealing directly with sponsors delivering the buildings through
the Department, which is never going to be a long-term success
because it is not what our core business is, and there was some
tension. What we have done in the last year to 18 months is integrated
Academies into the BSF programme. Sponsors now occupy a similar
role to the governors of voluntary aided schools in BSF in that
they are consulted and they are very involved in the design of
the buildings, and so on, but the local authority is the commissioner.
I think it is working a lot better.
Q657 Mr Marsden: Do you share that
assessment, Martin Lipson, and, if you do, why did you say the
rather sharp things that you did in your written submission?
Mr Lipson: I think it is the view
of a number of local authorities and the Local Government Association
that Academies are quite a challenging thing for some authorities
to deal with where they have strategies for dealing with underachievement.
In schools that did not start going in that direction, federating
schools and other solutions exist as sometimes quite effective
means of dealing with underperformance. I think (and this is perhaps
only for a minority of authorities) when they have to consider
the appropriateness of Academies as part of their strategy, it
is not necessarily the direction they will choose to go in. This
is difficult because Building Schools for the Future requires
authorities to set their strategy for many years in the future,
and Academies are not governed by the authority in the same way
that community schools are, which means that there could be elements
of the way that education is delivered locally that are outside
their control in the future. That is a change. The new Education
Act takes that further: it allows for schools to be outside the
authority's control in a number of respects. So, I think authorities
are saying to us it is more difficult now to plan future strategies
than it used to be.
Q658 Mr Marsden: Tim Byles, I am
not going to ask you to comment on the ideological issues there,
but I am going to ask you to comment on the practical issues.
If in particularly difficult areas, low achieving areas, we are
in for a lengthy period of creative tension between the Departments
and local authorities over how you include Academies in BSF, is
that not going to impact rather tightly on what are already tight
deadlines for you to deliver?
Mr Byles: I find that tension
point more historic than actual today. Having been, until five
weeks ago, a local authority chief executive, I have been very
much involved in the debate of how that discussion has matured
through time.
Q659 Mr Marsden: Do you think Martin's
assessment, or, to be more accurate, the assessment given in the
paper, is pessimistic?
Mr Byles: I think it was true
at the time it was written.
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