When Tony Blair came to power, "education, education, education" was how he set out his plans for office, putting classrooms at the top of the political agenda. More than 12 years later and, under a new prime minister, those words are now more likely to be on the lips of contractors explaining a healthy orderbook.
This month's CJ50 illustrates just how much the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is propping up the industry. The volume of work let last month pushed the value of new work to record highs, with public sector contracts doubling compared to July.
Carillion came out as the main beneficiary, winning more than £600m-worth of public sector contracts. Such is the firm's appetite for BSF, that it has now targeted winning £1bn-worth of work by the end of the year. And with plans to bring forward a number of schemes by up to five years (p8), the contractor is likely to come extremely close to achieving this.
But in this volatile economic climate, there is no guarantee the BSF bonanza will continue. There are concerns for funding triggered by falling land and property prices, and fears that holes in public finances will be filled by money earmarked for any number of other projects.
It takes a long time to get these projects going, but very little time to pull the rug. Having said that, education is such an emotive subject that once spending has been announced, it is very difficult for any government to do a U-turn.
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