Is the future flat-pack?

School buildings should be more uniform and funding to rebuild and maintain them, allocated to councils, rather than direct to schools.

These are the main findings of a government-backed report into the use of capital funding for schools, including Building Schools for the Future (BSF).

The report was written by Sebastian James, a long-standing friend of David Cameron and a former  member of the Bullingdon Club, who is now Group Operations Director of Dixons Retail plc.

The report claims that BSF was bureaucratic and costly.

Designs were sometimes inadequate and funding decisions were made on the basis of deprivation and attainment, rather than the condition of the buildings.

The authors say there should be a sharp move away from “iconic buildings and structures to buildings that are fit-for-purpose, efficient to run” and manageable.

They argue a standard design spec should be developed centrally to act as a blueprint for future projects.

The report cites the Flexible School Project in Swindon as an example of good practice.

Here schools will be built to a timber frame modular system in future.

This will consist of a teaching block, which can be adapted to form classrooms or any public facilities, and a link block containing wet facilities such as toilets and showers.

Ruth Reed, president of the Royal Institute of Business Architects (RIBA), dismissed this as a “flat-pack” approach to building schools.

She said the report overemphasised the role of standardisation.

Mrs Reed pointed out that housing minister Grant Shapps had recently condemned an identikit approach to house building. 

“Schools work best when they respond to the needs of pupils, teachers and the context of a site,” she said.

But Paul Carter, leader of Kent County Council, one of six authorities that sued the government over the halting of the BSF programme, expected that standardisation would only apply to larger projects.

“We shouldn’t over-estimate the massive backlog in maintenance and repair that is still needed”, he said. 

But he believed that BSF was overly grandiose.

Given the right freedoms Kent could achieve the same projects for 40% less.

“You don’t need a different architect designing every school in the country, you can still have buildings of architectural merit and cut down on consultancy” said Mr Carter.

But fellow litigant, Sandwell council leader Darren Cooper, claimed the government was planning to use prefabricated buildings, which would get us by in the short term, but in 20 years time would leave us in the same position as before.

Mr Cooper said his council was still waiting to hear about the nine schools that had their funding frozen when secretary of state for education Michael Gove called a halt to BSF last July. 

“You can always do things differently but these schools were being built in line with the needs of the areas they were built for.

“One size fits all is not good enough”, he said.

“This is an idea from America where schools are shipped over at a standardised cost of so many pounds per unit”, Mr Cooper added.

He believed that BSF projects had transformed the education of children in Sandwell and contributed towards the regeneration of the local area.

Dr Neil Bently, deputy general secretary of the CBI, said: “A set of centrally-approved designs is a sure fire way to make significant savings”.

He urged the government to respond swiftly to the recommendations.

Disability organisations were keen to ensure that the new designs did not exclude disabled children.

Marc Bush, head of research and public policy at disability charity Scope, said: “Regardless of who has the responsibility for designing the schools, we believe that all contractors must adhere to the principles of inclusive design, if we ever want our schools to be accessible and give disabled children the same educational opportunities as their non disabled peers.”

Simone Aspis, campaigns and policy co-ordinator at the Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALFIE), was concerned that the government’s drive towards deregulation, and the creation of Free Schools in particular, would lead to lower standards in building design for disabled children.  

A spokesman at the Department for Education said the buildings would be fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act.

The report also recommends that local authorities draw up and agree a short Local investment Plan with the government, so that funding for rebuilding and renovation can be prioritised in line with need.

It is hoped that greater economies of scale will be achieved by procuring projects together rather than one by one.

Funding for Free Schools and Academies will be allocated centrally.

The report suggests that a number of building and maintenance contacts are agreed centrally, an approach that may also be applied to the purchase of insurance and information technology.

The report also calls for the simplification of planning regulations relating to school design.

 

Shadow education secretary Andy Burnham said: “School building and repairs are in complete chaos thanks to Michael Gove.

“His decision-making over the scrapping of 700 Building Schools for the Future projects was described by a High Court judge as an “abuse of power”.

“And as if this wasn't bad enough, he has made matters worse by prioritising pet projects from the shrunken capital budget.

“With mainstream schools facing harsh cuts, he must set out how he intends to fund his free schools programme so that local communities can judge whether this is the most effective use of scarce resources.”

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “This is an independent report and ministers will now look at the report in detail and respond later on in the year.”

He said that there would be a lot of debate with schools and the construction sector, but could not say when or how further consultation would take place.

This article appeared in the June edition of Local Government News magazine.