Building schools for the future - Unison

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BUILDING SCHOOLS FOR THE FUTURE
5. Alternatives to the LEP
Although it has been actively discouraged by PfS there are alternative approaches to the procurement
of a private sector partner that does not involve the formation of an LEP. Some examples of these are
shown below:
(a) Manchester City Council - the Local Authority Partnership (LAP) approach
Manchester City Council has a leading reputation for its procurement procedures. It has set up a BSF
project team bringing together various disciplines such as property services, partnerships, accountancy
and procurement as well as education specialists.
Manchester decided that the LEP was not an appropriate model for them. Instead they established a
Local Authority Partnership (LAP). This model still provides for involvement of other stakeholders in the
City such as the Learning and Skills Council but it does not give formal shareholdings to private sector
partners in the way that an LEP does.
The Manchester Local Authority Partnership ensures that the new buildings meet the needs of
Manchester children in improving educational attainment but the Local Authority Partnership Board will
not be procuring the new schools or organising the refurbishment of existing schools.
The absence of an LEP means that, in Manchester, procurement is done through the city council in
consultation with stakeholders such as school governors, Learning and Skills Council and, where the
new school will be a faith based school, Diocesan Representatives. This gives the council greater
control over the timetable for the building programme. Contractors have already been appointed to
assist in the design and building of the new schools.
Because Manchester is not using PFI for its BSF programme, services such as catering and cleaning
are unaffected and schools will still have the option of using use the council’s in-house teams. The
freedom for schools to use the provider of their choice for such services came about as a result of ‘fair
funding’ which provides schools with their own devolved budgets to spend as they so choose. The
council procurement group has consulted the in-house catering teams on the design of new kitchens to
ensure they meet the requirements for a quality catering provision within schools. This is unlikely to
happen under PFI.
The council has also consulted residents and other stakeholders on the development of a district
governance model for education and children’s services. It is anticipated that such an approach will
provide a more coherent framework for all services, including education, social services and health
initiatives, delivered to children in the city and that such an approach would be best developed
alongside the BSF programme.
(b) London Borough of Greenwich
The London Borough of Greenwich is also developing a different procurement model to the LEP and has
secured approval from DfES to pursue an alternative approach to selecting a strategic partner.
The Greenwich model is a variation on the LEP in that it does not involve the formation of a Joint
Venture Company. Instead the procurement process involves two stages. Firstly a Strategic Partnering
Organisation (SPO) is procured and appointed using the negotiated procedure under EU procurement
rules. The supply chain for BSF is then subject to further competitions. The SPO is prohibited from
performing project services such as construction and long term service contracts. Greenwich believes
that better value for money is achieved through separate competition for the supply chain.
The SPO is responsible for partnering services e.g. identifying, scoping and developing projects on
behalf of the council and some project services e.g. site logistics, site supervision, procurement, design
management and integration. It would procure construction and long-term service contracts separately
through open competition.