Last week the National Audit Office published two reports:
While MabelSpace's business is primarily in the tertiary education sector (Further Education and High Education), our interest in estates certainly extends to Schools. In fact, nowadays, both Schools and Further Education Colleges (FE) rely heavily on the same source to fund estate projects: the Department for Education (DfE).
Historically, in England, the Schools and Further Education sectors have managed their estates differently. FE solutions have been identified and delivered by FE Colleges (using consultants and contractors of their choosing). The schools market has been more mixed. Local authorities can provide solutions on behalf of individual schools. However, over the last decade, the DfE has overseen hundreds of schools' design and construction.
Why did the DfE get so involved in schools projects?
Above is an English Victorian-built school. It's doubtful that any official at the state level would have been particularly concerned with its construction. The Local School Board most likely commissioned it. So when did the development of individual school buildings become the concern of central government?
Limited central government oversight of school projects started under 'New Labour' (before 2010). With an unprecedented level of ambition, this administration wanted to renew all English school buildings via its Building Schools for The Future" (BSF) programme. DfE officials' role was to orchestrate progress and ensure good practice. Yet, the scale of the programme meant that close supervision of all projects was impractical. So responsibility was passed to 'Local Education Partnerships' (LEPs), which designed and delivered multiple projects within the same local area.
Building Schools for the Future: Titus Salt School, Bradford (2008)
Architects: Anshen + Allen
Contractors: Amey
However, in 2010, Education Secretary Michael Gove (part of David Cameron's so-called 'austerity' government) decided upon a reset. The emphasis now needed to be on 'efficiency', and that meant further centralisation.
Why centralisation? There was a conviction that Labour's BSF programme represented poor value for money. Furthermore, only intervention from ministers (and civil servants close to them) could necessarily sort this out. Provincial technocrats were naive; a cabal of expensive designers and wasteful contractors were robbing the taxpayer. Of course, in some boroughs, there was some circumstantial evidence to this effect.
Therefore DfE's central management needed to step in and play a more active role.
When we critique this policy, its important to understand the historical context. At the time, these decisions were rooted in some widely-held anxieties. In the late 1990s, the construction industry's reputation was poor. There was a widespread assumption that the construction sector could do better. As a result, the then Labour government commissioned The Egan Report: Rethinking Construction, published in November 1998. The report concluded: "The industry as a whole is under-achieving. It has low profitability and invests too little in capital, research and development and training. Too many of the industry's clients are dissatisfied with its overall performance." Sir John Egan had a background in manufacturing and was a former chief executive and chairman of Jaguar Cars. His report sought to apply lessons from other sectors, particularly using standardisation. Essentially, Egan wanted the industry to stop the endless supply of unique solutions and standardise, thus removing uncertainty around outcomes (such as cost).
It's in this context that the 'Priority Schools Programme' was conceived. Gove looked to streamline schools' design and procurement. Standardised designs (the designers had wrestled over every millimetre) delivered a reduced floor area allowance per pupil. There was also a lower cost per square metre than previously mandated. In combination, these two adjustments could lower the new build cost per pupil by over 25%.
Construction procurement was via a 'framework' (a list of suitable contractors selected by the Department). For framework contractors, positive project outcomes increased the prospects of future work. LEPs, identified as unnecessary bureaucracy and cost, were ultimately excluded from the new arrangements.
The results were mostly low-cost, densely-occupied buildings with few 'break-out' spaces beyond the standard classrooms. The blocks were typically clad in materials with a finite lifespan. The architecture was mundane by comparison to BSF but generally functional.
The buildings shown above (BSF) and below (Priority Schools) are just one mile apart (but also, crucially, nine years apart).
Priority Schools Programme: Dixons Cottingley Academy (2017)
Contractors: Laing O'Rourke
Architects: Atkins
Nevertheless, despite its critics, the Priority Schools Programme replaced many of England's life-expired school buildings at a cost palatable to the then government.
Never was so much built for so many for so few pounds.
But was this the DfEs 'finest hour'? Well, not all school projects after 2010 were delivered this way. Some LEPs continued to operate and construct (as they held existing contracts). Some Local Authorities also continued to commission buildings for their schools. These projects often had more generous budgets and were likelier to find their way into architectural journals or win awards (see below).
City of Sheffield: Mercia School (2018)
Architects: Bond Bryan (Photo Credit: Phil Grayston)
Contractors: BAM
Yet Gove is probably the millennium's most influential Education Secretary. His legacy includes a generation of civil servants who, having internalised his approach, have delivered hundreds of buildings. They continue today despite criticism of organisations like the Royal Institute of British Architects. As long as agreed Key Performance Indicators are met (which include stringent internal environmental conditions), relatively low cost is considered to be relatively good value.
What's all this to FE Colleges?
The DfE's revised methods were not applied to FE colleges. In fact, the DfE did not assume responsibility for Further Education until 2016, when it transferred from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). This move looked to reboot FE Colleges' relationship with government (BIS had never really taken to the FE Sector).
However, this change will have placed additional burden on DfE resources. Therefore, when encountering any FE-related matter, an inevitable question for officials might be, "Does our response need to be so different to our response for schools?"
In 2019, the FE sector, so often a Cinderella missing Education's Funding Ball, found an unlikely fairy godfather. Boris Johnson, the then frontrunner in the Conservative Party's leadership race, pledged greater investment in "our amazing FE colleges". Following Johnson's victory, the response was patchy, but, after years of neglect, the Treasury allocated meaningful funds for FE capital projects.
Given the DfE's capital team's schools 'top-down' mindset, and the very short notice, a totally bespoke approach for FE was never likely. After an initial traunch of cash was sent to colleges on a formula basis, the Department began experimenting. This took two principal forms:
Attaching Strings: Colleges could apply to DfE and, if successful, self-deliver a project. However, the DfE micro-managed colleges' estates priorities via its awards process. Separate funding pots focussed on: the launch of 'T-Levels' qualifications; improving buildings' condition; solving under-capacity issues; developing various specialist teaching centres in subjects favoured by government (usually STEM), and so on. At the college level, projects are developed to simultaneously address a range of issues. But this funding arrangement meant that proposals needed to focus on one funding pot to increase the chances of success. This skews priorities and, amongst other outcomes, has meant more stand-alone single-issue specialist centres (neither flexible nor efficient).
Mimicking the Schools Process: The DfE looked to manage college estates similarly to schools. Policies covered not only common space standards and specifications but, in some cases, centralised procurement solutions. Most notably, the Department took control of the design and delivery of sixteen college projects (7% of all colleges). These schemes will be offered to the DfE's construction contractors framework and are set to use around 40% of the main FE building condition fund (see MabelPost 030423).
Anecdotally the allocation to sixteen colleges has surprised others whose estates also need refurbishment or rebuilding. One concern is that the projects may have been scaled to be attractive to Contractors on the DfE's framework. The sixteen projects are progressing slowly. Colleges' highly varied curriculum requires bespoke design developed in close consultation with end-users. The DfE team may be struggling with the unfamiliar demands of FE clients.
Meanwhile, many self-delivered projects funded from the same pot are already complete.
Which raises an important point: most colleges are much larger than schools. As a result colleges have significant leadership and management capabilities that supports successful project delivery. Many argue, MabelSpace included, that, over three decades and without excessive intervention from above, FE colleges have made the best use of any surpluses or grant money to maintain and improve their estates.
It is easy to see similarities between Schools and FE Colleges, but it is also important to recognise some fundamental differences. We should be careful about applying too many standard solutions or common approaches. Of course, if there is a tendancy to control FE projects from above, and assimilate them into the national schools procurement programme, it's reasonable for colleges to ask if that programme is fit for purpose. So how well has the schools programme gone?
National Audit Office: so how have the schools gone?
In MabelPost 030323, we noted that, in real terms, Capital spending on school buildings declined by 50% between 2009/10 and 2021/22. Furthermore, the Department's annual (2022) report noted, "There is a risk of collapse of one or more blocks in some schools which are at or approaching the end of their designed life expectancy and structural integrity is impaired".
Some contractors were frustrated by the slow pace that the DfE commissioned the latest iteration of its schools framework. This led to a fallow period where no new projects were available for bidding. One explanation MabelSpace heard was:
setting aside the real challenges of operating under lockdown, a lot internal resources were used on the FE colleges.
Last week the National Audit Office Condition of School Buildings report stated:
"Following years of underinvestment, the estate's overall condition is declining, and around 700,000 pupils are learning in a school that the responsible body or DfE believes needs major rebuilding or refurbishment. Most seriously, DfE recognises significant safety concerns across the estate and has escalated these concerns to the government risk register."
Against this background, the NAO reviewed the DfE's support of sustainability measures across all education institutions. In the second report, Department for Education: sustainability overview, the NAO states."
"As it stands, there is no plan in place for achieving the scale of decarbonisation across the education sector that is needed for DfE to make a proportionate contribution to government's targets."
"DfE is planning to secure additional funding for this work, but it does not yet have a clear view of the sector's current sustainability position, what interventions offer the best value for money and what it will cost to decarbonise the school estate."
An Accidental Bottleneck
Gove focussed on the buildings most needing renewal (hence the term 'Priority Schools'); at the time, given New Labour's earlier efforts, the overall position was not so bad. A relatively small and centralised management infrastructure would deliver a scaled-back programme. This was in keeping with the Conservative inclination for small government and the desire to control public spending.
We suspect this arrangement has become a trap. The Treasury's natural inclination is to hold onto its cash, but it has a legitimate defence. It can ask DfE, "How on earth would you spend more?" In 2021/22, DfE reported an underspend of £469 million. This underspend was "primarily due to the slippage of school building programmes...". Getting the same team to take on FE college provision and respond to climate change was always going to be a stretch. Our problem now is that, in terms of building condition and climate, events are overtaking us. Hundreds of school buildings, constructed for the baby boomer generation, are over sixty years old. Whether with retrofit or new build, we need to renew schools much quicker. The government's response to upgrading public buildings, and moving to net-zero, needs to be more cohesive. We should step back and think about what actually needs to happen. When we do this, we cannot be satisfied with the present arrangements and the bottleneck that is the current DfE system.
A National Social Infrastructure Authority
The problems are much bigger than the DfE. We cannot expect the Department to solve them. We need radical change - for example, a National Social Infrastructure Authority.
Regional Executive Offices of such an authority would consult Local Authorities, Schools and Further Education Colleges. The remit might also cover charities (for example, Youth and Community Groups and Sports Organisations) and even primary health care providers. In summary, the authority would look at those public assets that are the most distributed and therefore most visible and accessible to our communities.
The regional offices would think strategically and identify the location, scale and quality of social infrastructure required for our communities (as well as the opportunity to share space in efficient, sustainable hubs).
The Authority could have five functions.
Guidance: at the national level, identifying and publishing best property practice (strategic planning, developing a business case, carbon targets, practical sustainability).
Strategic: at the regional/local level, identifying the best investments in Primary, Secondary, Further Education, training etc.
Liaison: working with local clients on a project's business case, feasibility and budget.
Financial: project funding (passed directly to those clients self-delivering their projects).
Design/Delivery: a regional/local level service deployed flexibly where the client group needs/requests support (this would include frameworks of consultants and contractors).
A Thought for Friday
