The building industry is excited. The Building for Schools programme and its £45 billion budget is one of the few bright spots in a bleak landscape. Is it any wonder that this is an area in which some of the most talented architects are working? And that’s a good thing because CABE has been complaining about the poor design quality of the BSF programme which now dictates all building work for schools. The problem is this, it is all a bit slow and ponderous and there has been a serious shortfall in realisation of projects. Earlier, only 14 out of 100 schools scheduled for completion this year would be ready on time.
What does not help is the complicated and timeconsuming procurement process which involves a curious bid system which has generated arguments over the weighting given to design in scoring the bids. This can mean that design counts for just 8% of the overall score despite taking more than 50% of the time and investment. Design time is so short that there is no time left for innovation or for client contact. Half the bids have involved the 10 large commercial practices who have the resources to throw at a bid and all to the exclusion of small practices with local knowledge.
SLOWER OR FASTER?
Some of the controversy is whether the programmes could be speeded up or should take their time. The right answer is that schools have to last for a long time.
Beating the deadline will soon be forgotten; short-cuts and imperfect design and construction to achieve that deadline will never be forgiven. The fundamentals of schools have changed. Today, ICT is at the heart of the BFS programme and all that is involved with integration of systems and how new teaching spaces actually work. We are not quite at the X-machines which many US schools are but are certainly in the new worlds of swipe cards and biometric technology for security. This is so very hard for many people working on schools particularly when they come from the chalk and blackboard age.
The big problem is that we are reinventing the wheel time and time again. There do seem to be far too many major conferences still discussing it all. Delivering Transformation Education Buildings was held in November; another biggie in early New Year is about building Schools and a plethora of others abound.
If you really want to be very clever and speed up the programme without loss of quality and performance, all you have to do it put all the thinking in a hat, agree the best and produce, say, half a dozen ideal templates which could be replicated, to a greater or lesser degree, across the country. Tim Byles, when newly appointed as chief executive of Building Schools for the Future, said something similar about the mileage there was to be had in standardising components. Outspoken ex-schools inspector Chris Woodhead has been hammering on about this for ages. It all boils down to the fact that schools are for learning (and other things besides) but they should not be vehicles to massage the ego of the architect, the designer or the local authority.
EDUCATION IN PRACTICE
Having said all that, it is interesting to note that England’s biggest PFI school scheme has just opened in Nottinghamshire, The architects were Aedas and the transformation involved the redevelopment of 5 secondary schools and one special needs school across the county plus two new post-16 year old centres.
The latest Government pronouncement says that 350 primary schools are being built, new facilities will be constructed and major refurbishment carried out at 850 schools. Smaller building work will take place at another 350. Ministers have given the green light to plans put forward by 133 local authorities. A further 15 local authorities will now be given expert advice to help get their plans up to speed, so that more funding can be released next April. Ministers said work on the 1500 schools will begin over the next two years. 41 local authorities have met all the requirements set out in government guidance and will receive funding for projects in both 2009/10 and 2010/11. A further 92 will receive funding to carry out work in 2009/10, with extra support to develop their plans before funding is confirmed for 2010/11.Under the government's Primary Capital Programme, at least £7 billion will be invested in total to rebuild or refurbish half of all primary and primary age special schools by 2022/23.
This is all exciting and vital stuff. Schools have a special function to be positive breeding grounds for the future community, they have a civic responsibility, they are factories producing very precious 'commodities' on which our future survival depends. Please don’t get it wrong!
