Building Schools for the Future Annette Brooke To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he plans to announce decisions on bids for funding under the Buildings Schools for the Future programme made by local authorities in response to his Department’s request for bids relating to proposed capital projects which could be brought forward to 2009-10. Jim Knight [holding answer 13 March 2009]: We have not invited local authorities to bid to bring forward Building Schools for the Future (BSF) funding, because the strategic planning that underpins BSF means it is not a suitable programme to act as a fiscal stimulus. BSF typically involves the building of entire new schools; so design and planning need care and time. Accelerating the construction would curtail this planning and would thereby jeopardise the quality and transformational nature of the programme. We are however working with partnerships for schools to simplify procedures and accelerate delivery, and the procurement process has already been accelerated and costs reduced. On 3 March, we announced allocations to authorities and schools of schools capital from other programmes brought forward from 2010-11 into 2009-10, to act as a fiscal stimulus and to bring investment benefits early to pupils and staff. Dorset was allocated advances totalling £12.0 million, of which £9.0 million is for the local authority, and £3.0 million for schools as an advance of devolved formula capital to be used by schools for their local priorities. Bob Russell To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families which local education authorities (a) have commenced projects under the Building Schools for the Future programme, (b) have been given approval for schemes but have yet to start and (c) have not been given approval for schemes. Jim Knight The formal start of projects in BSF is the meeting between the local authority, DCSF and Partnerships for Schools (PfS) known as the remit meeting. Please see following list: Local authorities which have commenced BSF projects Barking and Dagenham Barnsley Birmingham Blackburn Blackpool Bournemouth Bradford Bristol Cambridgeshire Camden Coventry Derby Derbyshire Doncaster Durham Ealing Enfield Essex Gateshead Greenwich Hackney Halton Hammersmith and Fulham Haringey Hartlepool Hertfordshire Hillingdon Islington Kensington and Chelsea Kent Kingston-upon-Hull Knowsley Lambeth Lancashire Leeds Leicester Lewisham Liverpool Luton Manchester Middlesbrough Newcastle Newham North East Lincolnshire North Lincolnshire North Tyneside Nottingham Nottinghamshire Oldham Poole Portsmouth Redcar and Cleveland Rochdale Rotherham Salford Sandwell Sheffield Solihull Somerset South Tyneside Southwark St. Helens Staffordshire Stockton-on-Tees Stoke-on-Trent Suffolk Sunderland Tameside Telford and Wrekin Tower Hamlets Waltham Forest Wandsworth Westminster Wolverhampton Worcestershire Local authorities which have been given approval for schemes but which have yet to start Bedford Southampton Walsall Hounslow Kirklees Suffolk Local authorities which have not yet been given approval for schemes to start Barnet Bath and North East Somerset Bexley Bolton Bracknell Forest Brent Brighton and Hove Bromley Buckinghamshire Bury Calderdale Central Bedfordshire1 Cheshire East1 Cornwall Croydon Cumbria Darlington Devon Dorset Dudley East Riding of Yorkshire East Sussex Gloucestershire Hampshire Harrow Havering Herefordshire Isle of Wight Kingston upon Thames Leicestershire Lincolnshire Medway Merton Milton Keynes Norfolk North Somerset North Yorkshire Northamptonshire Northumberland Oxfordshire Peterborough Plymouth Reading Redbridge Richmond upon Thames Rutland Sefton Shropshire Slough South Gloucestershire Southend-on-Sea Stockport Surrey Sutton Swindon Thurrock Torbay Trafford Wakefield Warrington Warwickshire West Berkshire West Cheshire and Chester1 West Sussex Wigan Wiltshire Windsor and Maidenhead Wirral Wokingham York 1 Submitted an expression of interest in the BSF reprioritisation in advance of the boundary changes. Notes: 1. Authorities which have had their remit meeting are considered to have started projects. 2. Authorities which are in included in Waves 1-6a of BSF but have not yet had their remit meeting are considered to have approval for schemes but have not yet started. 3. The authorities that have not yet entered the programme are considered to not yet have approval. Bob Russell To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families which schools in each local education authority area have been approved for funding for each wave of the Building Schools for the Future programme; how much has been allocated to each school; which company has been awarded each contract; and on what date each project (a) was or (b) will be completed. Jim Knight Tim Byles, chief executive of Partnerships for Schools, will write to the hon. Member, and a copy of his letter will be placed in the House Libraries. Mr. Dai Davies To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment he has made of the merits of (a) refurbishment and (b) rebuilding of schools; what estimate he has made of the amount of energy which will be consumed for completion of the rebuilding programme; and if he will make it his policy to publish statistics on the number of schools (i) refurbished and (ii) rebuilt under his Department’s programmes. Jim Knight The comparative costs and merits of refurbishing and rebuilding schools vary from one school to another. Options, including refurbishment and rebuilding as appropriate, are appraised and compared locally, by or on behalf of local education authorities. The Department has not assessed the energy required for completion of the rebuilding programme. Refurbishment and rebuilding projects above a threshold are required to meet challenging targets based on a standard form of environmental assessment that takes into account construction methods. In the 2007 publication “Better Buildings, Better Design, Better Education”, my Department provided information on numbers of schools rebuilt or improved in England since 1997, including 1,106 new schools and a further 27,000 new or improved classrooms. The information was derived from data received from local education authorities and we anticipate asking authorities for an update of the information later this year. Bob Russell To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many local education authorities fall within the indicative prioritisation of first follow-on projects of the Building Schools for the Future programme; how much the bids submitted by each are; and on what date he plans to announce which authorities are to be given approval to proceed. Jim Knight 95 local authorities sent in revised expressions of interest for the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme which include proposals for first follow-on projects. I am making the indicative BSF prioritisation lists available in the House Libraries—they were announced on 2 March 2009. Guidance to authorities on revising their expressions of interest included that follow-on projects should be up to £100 million in capital value, and Partnerships for Schools (PfS) provided a funding model to assist authorities. Details of projects, including capital value, will be appraised by PfS when it engages with authorities on their readiness to deliver. I have not set dates for announcing formal entry into the BSF programme. Before then, PfS will engage with authorities to discuss their readiness to deliver and then assess the evidence that they provide. We aim to ensure that projects which formally enter the programme are fully ready to deliver: taking time to get this right at this stage ensures good and timely delivery later on. I aim to bring all authorities into the programme as soon as is practicable, provided they are ready to deliver. Consideration will also be given to starting follow-on projects where this is appropriate in the interests of good overall programme management, for instance where an authority already in the programme needs to maintain momentum, or where larger authorities need to have a manageable flow of projects over the whole programme.