黑洞社区

The head of the Education Funding Authority has welcomed the 拢2bn increase in the school building budget revealed in yesterday鈥檚 Spending Review, calling it a 鈥済ood outcome鈥�.

However, Mike Green, in his keynote speech at 黑洞社区 Live, said the target set by chancellor George Osborne of 500 free schools is 鈥渜uite ambitious鈥� as they only managed 241 under the coalition, which he admitted had been 鈥渜uite hard鈥� to achieve.

Osborne said he will spend 拢23bn on school building over the course of the parliament - 拢2bn more than the 拢21bn figure promised at the 2013 spending review.

Green added that 鈥渋n the whole we have to be more and more efficient as we will never have enough money for the school estate鈥�.

The authority has 鈥渘o choice鈥� but to meet the target of providing 600,000 school places, Green said, adding that within the 鈥渟chool estate as a whole there are enough places they are just not in the right places鈥�.

This is due to there now being more migration into cities than into suburbia and in general more migration into the UK, he said.

The authority is currently ramping up its Priority School 黑洞社区 Programme 2 and Green said he hopes to tell schools before Christmas over the order and pace of the programme, which will take them through till 2021 and see them 鈥渢ackle鈥� around 800 blocks.

He also would not rule out merging the authority鈥檚 national and regional framework鈥檚 saying that they 鈥渕ay blend [the two] into one framework that does more stuff鈥�.

This is because, Green said, they are aware of the expensive nature of bidding for frameworks and the authority is also looking at providing a clear line of sight for its pipeline to help it work more effectively with contractors.

Green would also not rule out more PFI in schools saying he would like to say 鈥測es鈥� but there are 鈥渓ots of things to take into consideration鈥� such as whether they provide value for money and whether he can put forward a convincing enough argument for them.

It was though 鈥渉ard鈥� green admitted contractors in London particularly, but no harder than in other sectors.