Schools chief denies baling out of BSF role

Richard Bowker rejected industry rumours this week that he was leaving Partnerships for Schools (PfS) after becoming frustrated by the slow pace of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

BSF bidders reacted angrily to Bowker’s decision to quit his post after just eight months in the job, accusing him of giving up in the face of public sector inertia and of undermining the credibility of the programme.

Speaking to CJ, Bowker dismissed the rumours as the product of “doom merchants”. He said he had been headhunted for his new job as chief executive of National Express. “There isn’t another agenda,” he insisted, adding that his departure did not reflect badly on BSF. “We are in the best shape ever,” he said bullishly.

Bowker said his main achievement in his brief stewardship was to ensure PfS was “utterly focused” on the delivery programme by appointing separate heads for the specification and delivery aspects of the BSF programme.

Bowker also boasted that he had pulled the local authorities into line with a “fair amount of straight talking”. As a result, he claimed, local authorities accept that “the only organisation that decides someone is a LEP (local education partnership) or a non-LEP is us”. He tossed aside suggestions that local authorities are still calling the shots on how BSF is delivered, insisting Liverpool’s decision to take a non-LEP route is a rare exception: “Let me make it very clear – from now on, it will be very, very difficult indeed to evidence a move away from the standard model.”

He also had a parting shot for the private sector players. “I have never come across a sector so full of people who would rather debate the process and structure of whether to use PFI or LEPs than get on with it.” In a David Brent moment, he added: “Message: please stop having bright ideas so we can all stop worrying and get on with delivering.”

Asked if “bright ideas” were not the very reason the public sector needed the private sector on board, Bowker said: “Please innovate to your heart’s content, so long as it is within a LEP.”

BSF bidders described Bowker as “arrogant” and “distant”. One commented: “He used to turn up at conferences, do his speech and bugger off. We eventually decided that was because he didn’t know enough to stay and talk.”

Another bidder said: “The transmitter’s on, but he’s not receiving.” The source called for a successor that could, “sell the benefits of BSF to the local authorities, rather than just bullying them into doing it – and particularly sell the benefits of PFI, which can fund the huge bid costs and therefore attract far more bidders to a scheme”.