School estates body says money for 鈥榖asic need鈥� building work at schools is close to a third below what it should be
The amount of money being directed to local authorities to carry out 鈥渂asic need鈥� building work at schools is close to a third below what it should be, according to the chair of a body of school estates professionals.
A new report by the Educational 黑洞社区 and Development Officers Group (EBDOG), sent into the National Audit Office, says real construction costs are around 16% higher than the Education Funding Agency (EFA) rates on which the Department for Education bases its funding.
Local authorities are facing a school places headache with the government鈥檚 best estimates suggesting a total of 600,000 new school places will need to be found between 2015 and the end of the current parliament in 2020.
For primary schools, shortfalls have meant local authorities have been left to top up central government funds to get schemes under way while experts worry that more resource-heavy secondary schools are facing bigger problems.
The government - which has provided between 拢800m and 拢1.4bn a year since 2010 and has allocated 拢1.2bn on average for the next three years for so-called 鈥渂asic need鈥� work - claims the funding, based on the EFA鈥檚 cost benchmarks, should be adequate.
But Peter Colenutt, head of strategic development at Hampshire council and the chair of EBDOG, said his 鈥渋nitial feeling鈥� was that funding was 20-30% short of what is required to deliver extra secondary places. He added: 鈥淥ur big worry is that the cost we鈥檒l be allocated will not be adequate to do the job. We need to deliver buildings to reasonable quality or we create a big maintenance liability from day one.鈥�
The EFA鈥檚 cost benchmarks are based on large frameworks for the procurement of big multi-school construction programmes meaning one-off small jobs will not be able to get the same rates as those schemes bundled up into frameworks.
Colenutt added: 鈥淲e have significant concerns about secondary schools and the cost multiplier. We鈥檙e worried it will lead to significant funding shortfalls.
鈥淭he infrastructure needs for secondary school are much greater.鈥�
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