£525m Academies schemes up for grabs

More than £525m of Academies work will be up for grabs under the Partnerships for Schools National Academies framework before it expires this December.

The race is on to shift 17 schemes through the pipeline and into procurement before the framework contract terminates at the end of the year and is replaced by a new four-year Academies framework.

The six firms on the framework, Laing O’Rourke, Skanska, Kier, Willmott Dixon, Carillion and Balfour Beatty, are preparing for a flood of work over the next six months.

A source told CJ: “The Academies workload flow is really good and getting better. There is a race to get the remaining 17 schemes under Framework One from preliminary invitation to tender stage before the end of the year when the framework runs out.”

Meanwhile, documents are out for the first phase of bidding for the Partnerships for School’s new Academies framework. Known as the Contractors Framework, but dubbed ‘Framework Two’ by Academies contractors, the four-year deal has 22 firms on the shortlist.

Partnerships for Schools will choose up to 12 contractors for each of the two regional areas, which cover the North and Midlands and the South, South East and South West of England.

The 17 schemes due to be let under the current framework are:

• £19.4m Trafford
• £50m Walsall
• £34.6m Staffordshire
• £95m Hartlepool
• £28.3m Redbridge
• £16.5m Enfield
• £29.8m Calderdale
• £32.3m Southampton
• £60m Oldham
• £15.1m South Gloucestershire
• £21m Bedfordshire
• £23m Havering
• £16.1m Peterborough
• £25.9m Cheshire
• £11.3m Wirral
• £24.1m Buckinghamshire
• £23m Northamptonshire