Jarvis gets caned over £105m PFI school deal

The contractor stands accused of breaching health and safety regulations, changing contract specifications and enforcing penalty payments on its subcontractors despite being asked not to. Jarvis has rebuffed all the school's criticisms.

In a 13-page annual governors' report, Sangeeta Mehra, chair of Varndean's resource committee, claims that Jarvis has provided "unsatisfactory aspects of building work and refurbishments".

A Jarvis spokesman told CJ: "In some cases, expectations at the school have been above what was contractually agreed and, naturally, this has led to some disappointment."

However, matters have been made worse: headteacher Andy Schofield no longer attends meetings with Jarvis as he did not get on with Jarvis chief executive Andrew Sutton.

In response, the contractor said it has not been given the opportunity to attend meetings of the governors nor the student body at which its performance has been discussed.

The school pays Jarvis £337,000-a-year for facilities management. However, the school claimed it has to wait days for urgent repairs to be done as requests have to be made through Jarvis' "slow" helpdesk.

Jarvis' PFI contract includes the refurbishment of Varndean Secondary School, Patcham High School and East Brighton College of Media Arts. It was named preferred bidder in August 2001.

Local Labour MP David Lepper told CJ that he "wouldn't be surprised" if the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) looks into the situation as Varndean is a high-profile school.

The DfES would not comment. However, in November last year Jarvis was investigated by the DfES for its role in a £59m schools joint venture PFI with Kirklees Metropolitan Council (CJ 20 November 2002).

The investigation concluded that the use of output specifications was a major cause of user dissatisfaction.

It recommended that these be replaced with clear input specifications on all school PFI refurbishments in the future.