BSF schemes worth £625m get green light early

Eight Building Schools for the Future (BSF) schemes, worth £625m, have been given the green light to launch this summer – up to five years ahead of schedule.

The eight councils chosen to fast track their schemes are Enfield; Hounslow; North Tyneside; Rotherham; Southampton; Staffordshire; Walsall and Worcestershire.

The eight schemes were part of Waves Seven to Nine, originally scheduled to launch between 2010 and 2013.

However as CJ revealed in March, all 33 councils with schemes in Waves 7 to 9 were invited to apply to be fast tracked by the Department  for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and Partnerships for Schools (PfS).

Each of the eight councils will be allowed to rebuild or remodel five secondary schools in their BSF schemes with the greatest investment need. The remaining schools in their schemes will be delivered later in the programme.

Eighteen councils out of a total of 33 councils in the three waves applied. But only eight schemes met the strict criteria set out by PfS. Schemes had to be ready to launch and councils had to commit to using the Local Education Partnership model. In addition all council chief executives had to promise to support revenue funding and to guarantee their BSF teams will have their own project directors and teams of advisors on board.

The fast track initiative is part of a wider remit to speed up the delivery of the BSF programme and level the BSF deal flow. It marks a possible move towards delivering BSF schemes as and when they are ready rather than in large waves. A DCFS consultation due to conclude in July is currently looking at delivering BSF schemes as part of a rolling programme rather than in defined tranches.

This is partly driven by increasing requests to jump the queue from councils with schemes ready to go.

Hounslow, Southampton, Staffordshire and Worcestershire will start their BSF projects in the summer. Enfield, North Tyneside, Rotherham and Walsall will start in the autumn. 

Partnerships for Schools chief Tim Byles said the schemes would “hit the ground running.” He added that he hoped the “ongoing DCSF consultation will help accelerate the rate in which the remaining authorities join BSF.”

Of 150 local authorities on the BSF programme, 70 schemes are still in the pipeline. So far 13 BSF schools have been opened with around 1000 currently being revamped, including 180 Academy projects.