{"id":484,"date":"2011-04-10T14:37:43","date_gmt":"2011-04-10T13:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=484"},"modified":"2011-04-10T14:37:43","modified_gmt":"2011-04-10T13:37:43","slug":"take-a-mary-baker-schools-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2011\/04\/10\/take-a-mary-baker-schools-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"Take a Mary Baker Schools Mix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An article in <a href=\"http:\/\/localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=6352%3Ajames-review-slams-system-for-capital-investment-in-schools&amp;catid=62%3Aprojects-articles&amp;q=&amp;Itemid=30\">Local Government Lawyer<\/a> [<strong><em>LGL<\/em><\/strong>] at the end of last week reports on a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/media.education.gov.uk\/assets\/files\/pdf\/c\/capital%20review%20final%20report%20april%202011.pdf\">review<\/a> of capital investment in schools that has criticised the system as \"not fit for purpose\u201d and suggested that the public sector had consistently failed to get the value it should have done out of the Building Schools for the Future [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.partnershipsforschools.org.uk\/about\/aboutbsf.jsp\">BSF<\/a>] programme. \u00a0 Indeed! \u00a0 The report dwells on this and provides much evidence of BSF's problems.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/bathblogs.wpengine.com\/edswahs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2011\/04\/BSF-review-report.pdf\">BSF review report<\/a> was written by Sebastian James, a Dixons\u00a0director. \u00a0The <strong><em>LGL<\/em><\/strong> piece lists a long catalogue of problems highlighted by James who says that, not matter how people tried, the system was always too much for them. \u00a0 Four issues from the reported highlighted by <strong><em>LGL<\/em><\/strong> are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The capital allocation process was \u201ccomplex, time consuming, expensive and opaque\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The design and procurement process for BSF was not designed to create either high and consistent quality or low cost. \u00a0\u201cProcurement starts with a sum of money rather than with a specification, designs are far too bespoke, and there is no evidence of an effective way of learning from mistakes (or successes).\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A lack of expertise on the client side \u201cmeant that there was little opportunity to improve building methods in order to lower costs over time, especially for very large and complex BSF projects\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>Devolved funding processes did not deliver efficiently the objectives that they were established to achieve. \u00a0Funds were diverted to those adept at winning bids rather than those most in need.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All this is very believable.<\/p>\n<p>The overall aim of the Review was to ensure that future capital investment will\u00a0provide good value for money and strongly support the Government\u2019s\u00a0ambitions to reduce the deficit, raise standards, tackle disadvantage, address\u00a0building condition and meet the requirement for school places resulting from\u00a0an increase in the birth rate. \u00a0Given this, James's main recommendations are unsurprising, perhaps. \u00a0Two stand out for me and have inspired the title of this posting:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>iii. \u00a0New buildings should be based on a clear set of standardised drawings\u00a0and specifications that will incorporate the latest thinking on educational\u00a0requirements and the bulk of regulatory needs. \u00a0This will allow for\u00a0continuous learning to improve quality and reduce cost. \u00a0Currently the\u00a0bulk of new schools are designed from scratch with significant negative\u00a0consequences on time, cost and quality.<\/p>\n<p>iv. \u00a0There must be a single, strong, expert, intelligent \u2018client\u2019 acting for the public sector in its relationships with the construction industry and responsible for both the design and the delivery of larger projects. \u00a0This body must be accountable for the delivery of buildings on time and to the right budget and quality standards. \u00a0This is a philosophical shift in approach as it would mean that the Department for Education will deliver not money, but rather a building to meet local needs. \u00a0Currently, the Department for Education supplies money to the Responsible Body and the principal accountability for delivery lies with them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, the (wo)man in Whitehall is to know best once again. \u00a0All this seems quite at odds with the government's localism agenda and it remains to be seen how Mr Gove will react. \u00a0It seems to me to be a huge and touching leap of faith that student and community needs can be met in this way, both to standard and price. \u00a0More likely \"best value\" schools will be built which never quite do what it says on the tin \u2013 just like all those cake mixes whose packaging flatter to deceive despite the eating experience they promise. \u00a0The is a mention of sustainability in the report, but it's hardly a fulsome one: \u00a0Bureaucrats 1 \u00a0Architects 0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An article in Local Government Lawyer [LGL] at the end of last week reports on a\u00a0review of capital investment in schools that has criticised the system as \"not fit for purpose\u201d and suggested that the public sector had consistently failed...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}