Must try harder

When it comes to the history of investment in UK schools, both primary and secondary, the last quarter of a century reads like something out of the Old Testament. For 25 years there was famine, until lo and behold, there was much feasting.

Now, mainly through the auspices of the private finance initiative, the government is eagerly doling out huge amounts of money in an effort to make up for the years of neglect.

However, in the rush to make the most of this manna from New Labour's heaven, is there not the danger that essential elements of good schools are going to be lost? Good design, for example. This is the danger facing local authorities (LAs) that are now overseeing the construction of new primary and secondary schools procured through PFIs.

How much input should headteachers have in the design of their new PFI schools? What measures are the government taking to steer LAs down the route of well-designed schools - not merely buildings with aesthetically pleasing architectural features, but those that work well for their users and local communities?

As an indication of the importance of this issue, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) published a consultation document last month entitled Building Schools for the Future. It confirms the Chancellor's announcement in the last budget: "Capital investment in schools will reach £5.1bn by 2005-06."

Not that this money is coming a moment too soon. The report states that six in every seven of the 21,500 maintained schools in the UK were built more than 25 years ago and are now reaching the end of their original design lives.

The DfES document proposes a school building programme that will incorporate the construction of 3,000 new secondary schools over the next 10 years. One of its proposals is to create a form of PFI similar to the one used in delivering the NHS LIFT programme. Schools will be bundled together regionally and nationally and tendered as public private partnerships.

Contracts will involve the rebuilding, refurbishment, maintenance and management of the schools over a 25-year period and the whole process will be overseen by a joint venture company set up by Partnerships UK and the DfES.

This is an idea that meets with the approval of one main contractor. "With LIFT you are with the end users and you get the opportunity to return again and again for their input before you put in your bid. It is an improved process. What happens with PFI schools deals is that you have specific people making decisions on behalf of headteachers. Sometimes they are pleased with the result and sometimes they are not. I think LIFT should take off in schools."

The bodies making the decisions on behalf of headteachers are invariably the LAs, which are accused of placing more emphasis on short-term affordability rather than long-term best value resulting in good design - a prime example of this kind of decision making is where regulation-sized classrooms are chosen for projects that then turn out to be too small for the school they are meant to serve.

It is a problem confirmed by Kevin Millett, a teacher who, because of his building experience, is employed as a building liaison manager at John Hanson's new-build secondary school project in Andover, Hampshire. "Hampshire County Council felt that the school should not have much of an input in the project," he says.

In fact, the headteacher had to finance Millett's salary out of his own budget because the LA did not see Millett's role as being of particular importance. "The LA works to the rules it has," he opines. "The school inspectors could have taken a better role in advising the school, but it wasn't in their brief."

One example of poor design at John Hanson is the site chosen for the administration staff block. "It is separate from the main school block when it should have been in the main building," says Millett.

Architects lack understanding

In his experience, architects do not understand the constraints of school life. "Modern buildings are more lightweight and tend to get hot and cold more easily. So you need a good ventilation system. When you have 1,000 kids in the playground for 45 minutes and then they all pile into the classrooms, the heat generated from each youngster is something like 100W. That means 100kW has gone into the school. You need to be able to increase ventilation and teachers would like more control to be able to do this."

Issues such as these are of concern to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, a government advisory body that is working hard to promote better design in schools.

A client guide published in September 2002, Achieving well-designed schools through PFI, states that CABE's views of the quality of schools being delivered at that time through PFI can, in the best tradition of end-of-term reports, be summarised as "showing potential - but must try harder".

It points out that one of the dangers of the straight-forward PFI process is that it moves away from the typical client/design team relationship, which means the client has less direct design support.

Moreover, this view was endorsed by the Audit Commission's report published in January this year. It states that, with regards to technical and architectural quality, early PFI schools were well below expected best practice and that unambiguous, practical and measurable design standards are needed.

Despite that, a more upbeat approach is taken by Caroline Fraser, CABE's enabling advisor. "Since the criticisms of the finished PFI schools, the projects we are directly enabling seem to be set on better courses. The headteachers have a great impact and local education authorities (LEAs) would be wiser to consult with them as early on in the project as possible."

Fraser emphasises that while the administration of the project lies within the LEA, it is important for bidders to have as much consultation as possible with the end users.

"It is very much in the interest of the bidder to build up a really valid scheme with the end users," explains Fraser. "After all, they will be in each others' pockets for the next 25 years."

Fraser is enthusiastic about the speed with which the DfES is managing proposed changes in PFI. "An indication of the DfES's energy on this is its proposal to have 12 example designs," she says.

These are standardised designs for PFI schools (approved by CABE and the Royal Institute of British Architects) that clients will have to choose from - six for primary and six for secondary - and which the DfES hopes to publish by September.

These are intended to supply end users with "unambiguous, practical and measurable design standards", that have been lacking in the past 25 years.

The local authority's attitude is that it is not practical to give headteachers too much leeway in terms of design choice as the consultation period would take too long. In order to solve this problem, the DfES's proposal to create a form of PFI similar to the one used in delivering the NHS LIFT programme, as well as the creation of an arbitrating body to act as liaison between the DfES, LAs and individual schools, is very timely.

According to the DfES consultation document: "Partnerships for Health - a joint-venture company owned by the Department of Health and Partnerships UK - shows what can be done to improve the procurement process, in this case, for primary healthcare. We are investigating similar models that could work well for schools."

While it is encouraging to hear such optimism from a government department, LAs, governors, parents and headteachers still need proof of LIFT's success. Only then can they decide whether the idea comes top of the class or falls into the category of "could do better". n