Funding gap causes schools rethink

Fewer new schools will be built in the first wave of the government's £5.1bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, following a shortfall in funding.
Despite efforts by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to bridge the affordability gap, many local authorities in the first wave of schemes are being forced by cost constraints to scale down ambitious plans for new exemplar designed schools in favour of refurbishing and extending existing schools.
A spokesman for the Public Private Partnership Programme (4Ps), which is working with local authorities involved in BSF, told CJ: "The amount of rescoping depends on where each scheme started from. Those that bought more fully into the original vision will have further to crash."
Cost cuts are expected to start with exemplar designs. The 4Ps spokesman said: "When the exemplar designs were
commissioned there was a no-holds-barred approach to innovation, but now bidders will have to be more pragmatic."
Local authorities are also looking at building fewer new schools. In response to this trend, Partnerships for Schools, a joint venture of the DfES and Partnerships UK, which oversees the BSF programme, recently announced that it is to commission a new exemplar design for the refurbishment and extension of existing schools.
Place Group managing director Simon Rule said: "Cost constraints throw down a challenge to us all. It is up to the government and all agencies involved to see how creative and innovative BSF can be within that budget."
Meanwhile, the Bristol and Bradford pathfinders are expected to go to OJEU before Christmas, with the Sheffield pathfinder and the Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark pathfinder following early next year.