Well – its been a busy final day before the Easter holidays. Nothing like a 105 page government report to test your stamina!. We were asked this afternoon to comment on a BBC report that headlines the ‘failure of the school building system’ but as I said: there is much to be welcomed in the report’s conclusions. So… the myriad of elements of the Capital Review have been deliberated, cogitated and digested and here is my view of the main conclusions of the report.

Overview
We’ve been saying for a long time that the Building Schools for the Future programme was rightly ambitious but unnecessarily unwieldy, expensive and complicated.  This review mirrors that position.  The key now is to come up with an approach that meets the needs of our children and teachers.

30% savings to school building costs
An ambitious target – whilst this might be true of the pilot school with all industry eyes on it, we must be realistic about that being replicated across all refurbished or newly built schools.

Fit for purpose schools
It’s very good news to see this expression repeated throughout the report.  We hope this leads to the development of a decent school standard, which would ensure that all schools are built to a level that positively supports teaching, learning, sport and play.

Standardisation
There is a role for the standardisation of design – the danger is whether the standard is high or low; that will dictate whether schools have the potential to be fit for purpose. We must ensure there is room for innovation in the future.

Evidence of the impact of school buildings on attainment and behaviour
We’ve always called for a robust programme of research on the impact of new school buildings. There IS clear evidence that school environments matter – detailed research in the form of post occupancy evaluation will also help support good practice around design and construction in the future.

A new central body for school buildings
There’s a role for a new central body to support the school building programme, but we welcome the suggestion that funding could sit within the Department for Education.  This should help support a change in culture in the procurement, design and construction process, which the report says is key to making change happen. We’re sorry the review did not recommend the establishment of a national advisory council which could act as a feedback mechanism direct to the Department – one of our key recommendations in our submission.

Local investment plans
The idea of putting local authorities at the centre of the process is welcome in principle.  The need to manage tensions will be key.

Condition of the school estate
A very welcome recommendation – an ongoing piece of work which tracks the condition of the school estate, which will help central and local government plan and help keep our school estate fit for purpose.

Timetable for recommendations
An ambitious timetable is welcome, particularly after the delays to the review itself.

Related posts:

1. James Review is (finally) here
2. Capital ‘James’ Review – our submission
3. Still waiting for Sebastian James…

After a long wait, we finally have the Independent Review of Education Capital – the James Review – which sets out the 16 recommendations for the reform of the way schools are procured, designed and built. Probably the biggest headline grabbing elements are:

• the much aired challenges, problems and waste associated with the Building Schools for the Future programme
• the suggestion that free schools capital budgets should be retained centrally
• that Partnerships for Schools should have an even larger remit and reach as a central body including negotiating contracts with the construction industry

There are also the issues we raised in our previous blog posts around: greater standardisation, the reduction in red tape around planning and building regulations, the use of faster procurement routes and a move away from the goals of school capital programmes being focused on ‘educational transformation’ to look instead at building condition and pupil places. He also recommends that new buildings should be based on a set of standardised design templates (referencing the kind of model used by Dixons and TESCOs) – yet will incorporate “the latest thinking on educational requirements.

The author of the report, Sebastian James, Operations Director for Dixons, says that the current system was “complex, time-consuming, expensive and opaque and that savings of up to 30% could be made by streamlining it” and that a “lack of expertise” among those procuring the buildings – often head teachers – meant there was little opportunity to lower costs or improve building methods”.

Already the review has sparked some interesting comment including Neil O’Brien, Director of Policy Exchange who in his Telegraph blog (as well as their report Building Blocks) is highly critical not only of BSF but also of the role of Partnerships for Schools.

We are currently preparing our analysis and response – but in the meantime the review document and letter from Sebastian James can be found at the Department of Education website.

Related posts:

1. Capital ‘James’ Review – our submission
2. Still waiting for Sebastian James…
3. Responding to the James review

The long heralded James Review on the future of schools capital seems to have had more pencilled-in launch dates than a NASA Shuttle. But we are pretty confident it will be launched shortly… For an industry that thrives on certainty, local authorities that need to plan and schools that need investment, this delay has implications. Rumours often fill information voids; some are plainly ridiculous, some really do represent debate within the Review team and Government. What we do know for sure are the three key watchwords for the James Review: building condition, standardisation and more for less.

That still leaves some big questions – what’s to be said about Labour’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. Were there any redeeming features about BSF? How can we ensure proper design for teaching and quality with an off-site modular approach? Is it sustainable and enduring to issue summary cost cuts to present and future projects? How do you incubate real innovation in an era of more for less? Shouldn’t Academy sponsors just be trusted with the capital spend – without intermediaries? How can Free Schools be created, work and really look and feel different to the parents involved?

Yesterday, I defended some aspects of BSF at a round table event chaired by Sir Mike Tomlinson. What I couldn’t defend was the silence of too many professionals and organisations, at the time, about what was really wrong with the BSF delivery process. The multiple professions involved should have done their own house-keeping. We wasted too many opportunities to get BSF right. We should have put our own house in order – not incrementally but properly.

School buildings are also becoming an even more deeply political subject and if you have any doubt, Michael Gove speaking at the Spectator conference last week said:

“People blame us. But if you are upset, the guilty men are Gordon Brown and Ed Balls; and the Treasury were responsible. The last Labour Government deliberately chose the most expensive route to build schools. I’m as angry as anyone else about the state of some of our school buildings”

There was also an equally lively exchange this week in the House of Commons:

Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab): The Secretary of State’s comments about the state of the school estate in comparison to what it was like after the Conservative Government in 1997 are nothing short of a disgrace. The reality is that this year the average secondary school has had its budget for maintenance and repairs cut from more than £105,000 to less than £20,000 this year. The Secretary of State has spectacularly failed to stand up for our schools and our schoolchildren. Does that not fatally expose how vacuous his claims are to have found more resources for schools this year?

Michael Gove: That question was beautifully written, almost as though it had been carved in marble by a master mason. The truth is that no one on that side of the House can afford to clamber on to their high horse when it comes to school buildings. It was that side of the House that inherited a golden economic legacy and squandered it. It was that side of the House that betrayed a generation of young people by giving us a record deficit and a record debt. It was that side of the House that presided over a schools building programme that was reckless, profligate and inefficient. It was that side of the House that put political convenience and partisanship ahead of our young people. Frankly, even though the hon. Gentleman was not in the last Parliament, every time he comes to that Dispatch Box to talk about the state of our education system or school buildings, there is only one word we need to hear from him, and that word is sorry (Source: Hansard)

The state of school buildings clearly matters to the coalition and the opposition as well as to our schools and communities. Indeed it is this passion for the fabric of schools that started our own organisation. But not everything lasts forever – BSF had its day. We at the BCSE have also had to rethink how we shape and respond to the new landscape ahead. We are an independent charity and not party political. We have tried to be a cool voice in a heated debate.

Lets hope the launch of the James Review heralds the rational debate this important subject needs. Also keep an eye on this Wednesday’s budget for some positive news on ways forward for investment in our schools and colleges.

Related posts:

1. Capital ‘James’ Review – our submission
2. Responding to the James review
3. Waiting for Superman: Free Schools vs Local Schools – the debate starts here

It is clear that the much awaited Government’s Review of Capital Investment led by Sebastian James (pictured left) will represent a significant milestone in the development of a new approach to investing in the infrastructure and facilities in our schools across the country. The challenge is clear: how do we maintain a level of investment, focus and innovation within a tight budget settlement. Whilst some local authorities apply for Judicial Review of decisions to cut Building Schools for the Future (BSF), the national challenge remains. Quite simply a significant proportion of our school estate is now beyond its design life – schools need to be fit for purpose.We know we are in a climate of ‘more for less’ and that school investment must compete with other investment priorities. Discussion within the review team has focused on elements of standardisation, modular construction and learning from other sectors including retail.

In discussion with the review team at the Department, and with Sebastian James himself, the British Council for School Environments (BCSE) has communicated key messages from the full spectrum of its membership. The BCSE’s submission to the review gave a commonsense overview of what had worked well in the past and what needed to be improved. A ‘Blueprint for Schools’ developed by the BCSE drew on international research to identify optimum school environments. Decent School environments and key enabling factors – like quality of air, light, acoustics, temperature, comfort and build quality – do matter and can influence educational outcomes . To read the British Council for School Environments’ submission to the James Review and research overview – see below.

Within a matter of weeks the review, I understand, will appear as an interim report for further consultation, discussion and debate. It is our responsibility  to think about the quality of the educational experience and environment for all young people. Seeking common ground is not a sign of weakness but a national imperative. The James Review will play its part in that national debate.

Capital Review: British Council for School Environments response

Related posts:

1. Capital Review update
2. Responding to the James review
3. New Year: time for fresh thinking on school capital

It’s been a long break from Centre for School Design activity – but with a lot of British Council for School Environments work in December including a study tour to New York and New Jersey, a new board of trustees and chairperson (Rachel Jones), a new office move to Islington, a second screening of the film Waiting for Superman with the thinktank Policy Exchange – and some big planning for 2011… we have used last few weeks to recover regroup!So, we are now back for a new year and geared up for a lot of important developments to come in the next few months: the implementation of the government’s White Paper, the report of the much anticipated Capital Review (we believe the full report, including an audit of the 0-19 capital estate due before Christmas, will now appear in February/March). Plus for the BCSE: the launch of our 2011 Awards and new projects, collaborations, events and activities will be unveiled shortly.

But before we set off headfirst into 2011 – there’s a small window to reflect and a chance to set out some thoughts about fresh thinking in a time of rapid change. With a decade of significant financial investment by government (and emotional investment from teachers and parents) there’s a pressing need to ensure all of that energy and ambition is not driven out of the system by the major changes that have taken place in the past 6 months. Of course there is a need for greater certainity and money is a huge issue, but thinking about education in this current climate is arguably more valuable. What is needed to unlock more work and indeed the education system is a mixture of creativity, participation and a focus on what works. The spontaneity of parents, teachers and communities can be mined in new ways to ensure we are getting the best out of limited resources.

Also – for too long – public policymaking has been a top-down process that has been monopolised and codified too tightly. Not all of the great ideas we hear about are expensive in cash terms – but the potential value of many of them is huge. Its vital that we continue to keep talking, to connect with each other across organisation boundaries. How do we do this? Some of the fresh thinking comes from outside of the sector. Take Ivo Gormley’s idea on making short documentaries about the impacts of social policy. This has an obvious application at the grassroots level to education and school design. Similarly, Lauren Currie’s ideas around how you can involve everybody – not just the self-selecting active citizens – to participate in decisions around the future direction of schooling are useful.

Tim Davies’ idea on building a consensus among public sector management that interactivity is a good thing, really needs to be promoted among the staff in local government who deal with education policy. Plus a clear message needs to be sent to government and the Capital Review team to say that frankness will be rewarded and not seen as a criticism. Dominic Campbell’s idea on making procurement a great deal more interactive – a process that could and should involve teachers, parents and local communities – can ensure that a more energy goes straight to the front line where it is needed and ensuring that procurement isn’t a wasteful dialogue between detached professionals or a budget-maximising private sector. All of these ideas are taken forward on an excellent site called Political Innovation – which argues that politics should be done differently – its surely time education was done differently too.

To paraphrase the leader of the opposition, ‘last year is a different country’. There will certainly be a range of new opportunities coming out of the Capital Review and upcoming developments in our sector.  It can be an exciting year… we are eternally optimistic.

Related posts:

1. Free Schools Thinking launched
2. Free Schools Thinking – what is our new report saying?
3. School capital investment – getting our house in order

This is a swirling and confusing time for those involved in schools and education. As a new landscape is taking shape there are a few things to note and a some to be wary of. It’s a heady mix for teachers and those at the sharp end as we wait for the headline spending figures on October 20th in the Spending Review. So ahead of our BCSE Annual Conference which focuses on the changing policy landscape – here are my top five areas of interest that will provide some of the dynamics of the shifting policy season through the Autumn and sharp Winter. 1) Building Schools for the Future
After a very short honeymoon period for the coalition – a promised Emergency Budget – then set in motion the announcement of the rapid termination of over 700 school projects. This was hard politics for all concerned and caused real human anguish in the manner of its delivery. It says much for the Secretary of State that he apologised more than once. There are still schools in the pipeline but looking over the Christmas horizon, schools, local authorities and the construction sector need certainty of planning and intent.

Yet this Coalition Government has said it will continue investing in the school estate. Above all, this is more important than the survival of a quango – Partnerships for Schools – who seem to be in the process of constant reinvention. This is about the key strategic decision – how do you up-date a schools estate that in the main is beyond its design life and does not properly support teachers to do their jobs? As one colleague in the industry said to me – ‘The investment was right; the way we did it was wrong.’

2) Academies and Free Schools
After the fastest piece of law making we’ve seen in a long time this has to be more than just a mere numbers game. New freedoms for schools and new ‘free’ schools have to demonstrate clear and applicable innovations of success for a wider system, not yet convinced that mere change for change’s sake is what they need. Waves of converters to Academy status have pledged to work with other schools and share their expertise – these alliances have to build real trust at local level.

The potential sixteen Free Schools, billed as an innovation in pupil place planning, have to build on more than an understandable frustration with the existing education system. In light of opposition this week from Liberal Democrat conference, free schools must be truly diverse and based more on partnership than polemic. Exceptional people in schools, local councils and the voluntary sector are already doing exceptional things for our young people. The key will be to celebrate and connect them into the current infrastucture not for them to become caricatured and isolated as education follies.

3) Decent school environments
I recently sat on the BBC TV Breakfast sofa and watched the pupils and teachers from a school in Derby tell the nation why decent school environments matter. This was not about luxuries or frills. It was about leaky roofs, broken furniture, lack of light, bad acoustics and lack of disability access – all factors that prevent  pupils from learning and meaning their teachers were not supported to do their job.

I hope for all concerned within education that it is mere coincidence that the worth of design in schools and the skills of architects who are currently being traduced in the media – is not part of a campaign to diminish the role that the school environment plays in improving schools. There is also a blame game directed at so-called greedy contractors – the majority of whom have been building world class schools in both the state and the private sector.

What we know is that there is a wealth of evidence globally and from other sectors that quality air, light, furniture and acoustics affect performance. Well engineered and well designed spaces matter for our teachers and learners. Decent school environments are an asset and a tool for school improvement. They underpin and support quality teaching and can enrich learning. Decent school environments create safe and ordered spaces and places for our children. Beware the posturing and positioning in the media. Britain needs to be ambitious for its schools.

4) Schools Capital Review
Too often in the past our school investment programmes were saddled with windy rhetoric and organisational bias. Was BSF so retro-fitted that it became almost alienating to those on the ground? This review has to be the overhaul of schools capital that we all want. Open and honest. And not afraid to challenge the status quo. This is about the national interest not organisational self-interest.

I welcome the involvement of Tesco and Dixons – we’ve always got something to learn from other sectors. I welcome the involvement of ‘people’ – focused Lewisham Council. We need to get to collaborative procurement, enduring partnerships, deep learning and simplicity of process and outcome. We need carbon reduction at the core of the business plan. There is also a useful new 3R’s – refresh, refurbishment and re-use – to consider. Schools infrastructure investment itself is a productive investment – jobs, kit, supply chain and community.

5) The £1400m2 challenge
Finally, we’ve come a long way in testing and modelling school design – from exemplar designs to the new £1400m2 challenge. How do you drive down the cost per square metre? Can we design and build a school at around £1400m2 as they do in Europe and Ireland. Of course we need to look at value and driving out waste in the system. The chance was there three years ago with the Review of BSF – instead we got flimsy legal advice and we merely tinkered at change.

But, we’re learning that mere top down command and control doesn’t culture the innovation needed. Excessive concentrations of power lacking in transparency and accountability will merely repeat the mistakes of the past.
Our national challenge is we have thousands of schools that need fixing up and we’ve got a lot less money with which to do it. Quite simply we need to think and not be afraid to think differently.

Those are the challenges ahead – lets keep the debate going between industry, schools, local authorities and the policy makers in central government about making the system better.

Related posts:

1. Academies and Free Schools Advisory Service
2. Free schools – connecting the dots
3. Navigating and shaping the new landscape

We are back after a summer break and straight into a new term with a number of key milestones ahead – the interim Capital Review report expected in early October, the wide ranging Comprehensive Spending Review on the 20th October, this week’s announcement of the first set of 16 free schools plus a gentle but growing wave of work being started on the Big Society including Town Hall sessions across the country and a growing network. Whilst some in our industry have gone to ground or even disappeared, others describe the feeling of being cut adrift whereas others are gearing themselves up for new oppportunities in a rapidly changing industry.

What sits in the middle of this for us is our landmark BCSE Annual Conference http://buildingbetterschools.eventbrite.com/ which is looking to make sense of this changing landscape. Last year was about bringing the world to the UK and giving people take away ideas – this year is about sharing with the world what the UK is learning and making sure people have the tools they need and a community of people to get the practical support they need when they leave the event. But this represents a challenge – how do we meet such diverse needs and interests in just 2 days – conferences are too linear aren’t they?

So we are working out a way of co-creating the conference – through this blog, through our growing linkedin groups and face to face networks, through engaging innovative partners – from University of Salford to the American Architectural Foundation to the Welsh Local Government Association – to challenge our thinking but also extend our reach and to give people the kind of experience they need. We are creating new layers to our event – with a new Local Authority Futures programme – which will give local government delegates and fellow professionals a chance to to share concerns, identify solutions and share knowledge with the whole conference and beyond. And finally to amplify the event, we are using every media available – Gleeds TV to broadcast, Be2Camp and The Construction Network to liveblog and cascade to the construction industry and just today we have got on board the NAACE – to link us in to grassroots staff and those working around technology in schools.

As the event, as with responding to this new landscape – we can’t just be reactive and respond to a wave that is about to hit us. We need to be proactive and start to shape the future ourselves, there is no other way of navigating through and succeeding in the this austerity environment. Welcome to the new world – join us to help create it…

Related posts:

1. Reshaping our learning landscape
2. Academies and Free Schools Advisory Service
3. Building Better Schools conference – have your say

Again, a month is a very long time in the current climate of educational revolution.

Click on this image to go to the 2010 Awards booklet

Looking back, it’s very hard to believe that it was less than a month ago that Michael Gove read the last rites over the BSF programme and announced the review  chaired by Sebastian James.

The interim report is due in September and the final one is published in December.

Since then, we’ve already organised a number of member meetings – one in Manchester and the other in London – with over eighty people attending. These were intended to flush out questions and response and we are putting our finishing touches to now. We’ve been circulating templates that existing projects can use to feed in case studies.As Pascale Scheurer of Surface To Air Architects put it in our Centre for School Design comment thread…

“…[a] positive aspect of deregulation/competition (Academies  &  Free Schools) could be innovation, choice,  improvement through competition and co-opetition between schools.

Potential negative = impact on children in free-market-failure schools, impact on vulnerable children and those whose choices are limited.

If the process & programme can be designed to mitigate these negatives, the innovation will be very welcome.”

The whole Free School programme has continued to grab headlines, and one of the immoveable objects that they are confronting has been the difficulty in finding suitable sites.

Much of the procurement and guidance that has been available in recent years has –as our submission to the James Review will restate – been inflexible, monolithic and lacking in creativity.

Academies and free schools need a different kind of help, and for this reason, we’ve established the Academies and Free Schools Advisory Service. This is intended to gather the combined and accumulated experience of people who have worked on hundreds of school rebuild, refurb and reuse projects and put it at the disposal of these new providers to deliver next-generation schools.

We’ve continued to emphasise the role that school environments play in education and we’ve been a bit worried by those some expressing the view that school environments have little impact on the quality of education on offer. They do.

And lastly, it’s a month since the BCSE awards, but let’s not forget that there are some great projects out there that act as an example to us all on what is possible. Have a look at the awards booklet – it’s now online here.

Related posts:

1. What you may have missed in May
2. What you may have missed in June?
3. Responding to the James review

We have now run both of our highly successful BCSE James Review sessions – with over 80 people attending this week.

We have prepared a set of notes which you can download from here and update with your own comments and figures. The first is a case-study template (MS Word) and the second is a more general response to the consultation (MS Word). Instructions on how to return these can be found within the documents.

In the meantime we understand that Partnerships for Schools and the DfE Capital Review team have sent out invite to a number of colleagues for workshops in the next few weeks – the first next week in Sheffield focusing on Design and Procurement and I have shared below the info that has been sent out to people.

If you are involved in these sessions (representative groups such ours and RIBA, LGA are not allowed to attend!) we see these as ideal opportunities to input to and draw from learning from this group. We understand that there will also be a formal call for evidence launched next week – the interim report of the review will be out in September and the final report in December

In the meantime, I hope those templates prove helpful to you.

— Inivation to Capital Review workshops —

Dear Colleague,

On 5 July the Secretary of State launched a review of all areas of DfE capital funding with the aim of ensuring that future investment represents good value for money and strongly supports the Government’s ambitions to raise standards and tackle disadvantage.

Future capital investment will give priority to core needs of the school system such as ensuring that there are enough school places and that those schools that do need rebuilding and renovation will in future receive that money in a more timely and efficient manner. The terms of reference for the review and further information can be found on the DFE website at the following link: http://www.education.gov.uk/news/news/bsf-review

Underpinning the review there are five main work streams, these are: Capital Sources and Allocation, Maintenance and life cycle, Design and Procurement, Build strategy and Controls process and performance measures.

Over the coming weeks we will be holding a series of workshops and we have identified a number of stakeholders who we think could make a valuable contribution. The workshops will be held over two days: the first day will focus on mapping existing processes; on the second we will start to map how the future process could look.

We very much hope you will want to take part in this important piece of work which will help shape the future of our capital investment in schools and other facilities.

We would like to invite you the workshop on Design and Procurement. Unfortunately we are unable to cover the costs of travel and accommodation on this occasion but it will be held on 5th and 6th August at the Department for Education building in Sheffield.

Department for Education
2 St Paul’s Place
125 Norfolk Street
Sheffield
S1 2FJ

If you or are a representative are able to attend please accept this outlook calendar invitation or send an email confirmation to capital.review@education.gsi.gov.uk, letting us know if you have any special dietary requirements.

An agenda and directions will be sent on in due course. We hope to see you there.

Best regards,
Sebastian James (Capital Review Chair)
Dugald Sandeman (Senior DfE Review Sponsor)

Related posts:

1. Responding to the James review
2. School capital investment – getting our house in order

The more we’ve looked at the review looking at the overhaul of England’s school building programmes led by Sebastian James, the more we’re seeing opportunities to rationalise what had become a cumbersome and inefficient means of improving the standards of school stock.

Pic: Click for credit

Over the next few weeks, we’re hoping to use The Centre for School Design site to build a conversation between people who work in local government and a handful of expert guest-bloggers before we finalise our own response to this review.

One of the key questions for us is this: Are other countries building things cheaper and better than us? When Michael Gove observed that Hong Kong International Airport had gone from soup-to-nuts in less time than it took some BSF rebuilding projects, he surely had a point about the waste, delays and ineffectual procurement methods that were used?

Looking at the terms of reference (MS Word Doc), we’d be very interested to see how procurement, in particular, is reviewed. We were only ever able to get half-answers from Partnership for Schools on why this process needed so many inflexible rules and gatekeepers. We’d also be interested to find out why so few people were prepared to speak up in the face of such obvious delay and poor management.Was it the case that those who had a birds eye view of the problem were also utterly dependent upon Partnerships For Schools for the ongoing success of their project? Is it possible to manage a scheme such as this in a transparent and accountable way when a QUANGO of any description is in a monopolistic position?

A review such as this appears to take all bets off the table – and this can only be a good thing. Can we bring these projects closer to local management? In preparing the ground for Free Schools, the bigger prize, surely, is that the processes needed to refurbish a school will need to be easier to apply.

How far did the sheer complexity of processes serve to effectively centralise decisions? Do complex benchmarking schemes need to be replaced by much more useable standards that everyone can understand – standards that define what a decent school is? Indeed, is this one of the great opportunities offered by the concept of the post bureaucratic age?

We hope to hear your views here in the comments section, in our LinkedIn forum and at a number of events that we’re organising to help focus everyone’s thinking in response to this review.

No related posts.