Building schools for the future - Unison

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30 BUILDING SCHOOLS FOR THE FUTURE 2. Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Knowsley sits in the north west of England between Liverpool and Manchester and is one of the seven metropolitan councils making up the Merseyside conurbation. It has a population of 151,000. Knowsley schools have consistently under-performed in terms of national league tables on educational attainment and the elected members at Knowsley were keen to ensure that the future of the council’s education service was to raise both educational attainment and investment in the physical fabric of the school buildings. However, the statistical evidence for schools performance demonstrated that the under performance was not specific to certain wards. The council also recognised that there was a growing need to tackle the issue of falling pupil numbers. The numbers of primary pupils was examined on an area by area basis to determine the net fall in pupil numbers. This decline in primary pupil numbers will have a drastic impact on the secondary sector and so the BSF Strategic Business Case within Knowsley set out a series of options to ensure that the decline in pupil numbers was dealt with as part of the BSF programme. Knowsley has 78 schools, 60 are primary schools, seven are special needs schools and 11 are secondary schools. The BSF programme will see the 11 secondary schools replaced by eight learning centres. The thinking behind the learning centre approach is that more integrated opportunities for cross-agency working can be developed as part of the BSF programme. For example as well as a ‘school’ the centres will allow access to social services, child psychology services and a range of other commonly accessed services by children and young people and their parents or guardians. The centres will allow for services to be expanded particularly within the 14 to 19 year provision. Knowsley has a high proportion of faith (voluntary aided) schools making up around 48% of the total number of schools. PFI is being used for LEA based schools where as the faith schools are utilizing conventional funding (Supported Borrowing). Knowsley is also proposing a ground breaking ‘Joint Christian Learning Centre’ where intake will be from Roman Catholic primaries, Church of England primaries and the community. Knowsley has decided to seek mandatory variant bids for the BSF school cleaning contracts but has carved out catering services from BSF as it wishes to maintain strategic control of catering to link to the council’s health and social objectives. The in-house facilities management team has been restructured to respond to the competitive element of BSF and has also had an audit of its costing structures carried out by a consultant to identify its market position / contestability. The council has adopted a strategy that supports the in-house team providing that value for money can be demonstrated through the variant bid process. The council has consulted the local UNISON branch. However as with many authorities the consultation was initially limited to the representatives looking after the education portfolio. Much wider consultation has been necessary as the impact of BSF will go beyond the traditional boundaries associated with the education sector, including for example, those UNISON members providing grounds maintenance services to schools. 3. Manchester City Council Manchester is in the north west of England with a population of over 440,000. Manchester City Council has a history of developing and delivering large scale regeneration projects such as the regeneration of the city centre following an IRA bomb attack in 1996 and the Eastland’s area, site of the Commonwealth Games stadium from 2002. This has been transformed from a run down area of the city with a declining population to one of stable economic growth and an expanding population. The BSF programme assumes an increase in pupil numbers in some areas of the city. For example a new secondary school is proposed within the Eastland’s site and the projected growth in the school population bucks the national trends for declining pupil numbers within schools.
A BRANCH HANDBOOK A total of 15 secondary schools are within the BSF programme with seven new build schools and the remainder refurbishments. Five new academies are also proposed. The funding available within Phase 1 of the programme means DfES will provide around £159 million leaving the council to find a further £20 million. An opportunity exists to receive a further £100 million in additional capital resources through the DfES Academies Capital Fund for the five new academies. Manchester is not using PFI for its BSF programme. All the new build and refurbished schools will be built using Supported Borrowing (conventional funding). This means that instead of the council receiving PFI special grant (PFI credits) to support the cost of repayments for capital works the funding from DfES will instead be supported using Revenue Support Grant Formula Spending Share. A report to the council’s executive states ‘By adopting a traditional procurement route the council retain greater flexibility to introduce its initiatives, in particular around regeneration, community involvement and service delivery partnerships as they develop over time’. Manchester has not adopted the national LEP model. It has set up a Local Authority Partnership (LAP) which is also referred to as the Manchester Local Educational Partnership. This still allows the council to bring on board non council stakeholders but ensures that the council retains ownership and control over the design and build process. This means that the LAP (Manchester LEP) will be concentrating on ensuring that the educational vision of transforming Manchester’s secondary school estate is the focus of activity and that the LAP is not tied up into procurement and commissioning issues which are already well covered within Manchester’s own officer basis of expert procurement. This model addresses UNISON concerns that PFI is all driven through an exclusive private sector partner. In Manchester the model allows for private sector design and build contractors to be brought in but with the council retaining control over the financing through the use of Supported Borrowing, and of other operational arrangements Some maintenance work is included within the BSF programme as an incentive to contractors to carry out good quality work. Arrangements where maintenance works are included within construction and refurbishment contracts are standard industry practice in both the public and private sector. Without PFI the in-house services to schools such as catering, cleaning and grounds maintenance are left relatively unaffected as schools still have the option, under delegated funding rules, to purchase services from whoever they wish including the in-house teams. 4. Newcastle City Council Newcastle is situated in the north east of England, has a population of 260,000 and employs 14,973 staff on both a full and part time basis. The city has had a successful regeneration programme but still has schools that are in some of the most deprived wards in the country. The council has adopted a LEP based on the PfS recommended model. This model is a 10 year partnership arrangement with the LEA taking the lead on procurement of the schools supported by Partnerships for Schools. The LEA / PfS will have a 20% equity stake with the remaining 80%, owned by the private sector. The council had agreed to test, on a value for money basis, the option of excluding soft services from the BSF project by way of a mandatory variant bid. Similar arrangements are in place for managed ICT services. Following an assessment of VFM a recommendation was made to the executive of Newcastle City Council in January 2006 that soft Facilities Management and ICT services should remain in-house and the evaluation of the LEP would not include these elements of the service. ICT services have been a particular feature for Newcastle as the council has a strong internal ICT unit that currently provides a range of ICT support services to schools. The UNISON branch is fearful that this could lead to privatisation of jobs by stealth rather than a strategic decision to include services within the PFI scheme. Newcastle already has a schools PFI scheme involving a number of primary schools. BSF will bring in a mixture of new build, extension and refurbishment schemes. The schools PFI scheme has £60 million 31
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