黑洞社区

The government has committed a further 拢2bn to its flagship school building programme, although the funding will not be made available until after 2015.

Schools minister David Laws today said the government would commit 拢2bn in capital funding over the next spending review period, from 2015-2021, for the second phase of the Priority School 黑洞社区 Programme (PSBP).

Laws said the next phase of the PSBP would draw on data collected through the Department for Education鈥檚 school condition survey, which is being undertaken by consultants Capita, Davis Langdon and EC Harris,

Laws said the survey, initially meant to be completed last October, would now be completed by 鈥渢his summer鈥� and would act as a 鈥渦seful tool for targeting the available resources most effectively鈥�.

He said the new funding would be focused both on rebuilding whole school estates, as well as individual school buildings within estates.

The current 拢2bn PSBP programme was launched as a replacement for the 拢55bn 黑洞社区 Schools for the Future programme in July 2011 and includes 261 schools that were identified as most in need of improvement.

Around 拢1.75bn of the original programme was set to be funded through the government鈥檚 new private finance model, called Pf2, but this was slashed to just 拢700m after struggles to source private sector finance, with the remainder made up through capital funding.

The additional 拢2bn in funding announced today is capital funding, with no private finance element.

DfE said details of how schools would be selected for the next phase of the PSBP would be published 鈥渟hortly鈥�.

Laws said that of the 261 schools in the programme, 28 schools were now either under construction or open, with design work underway at 234 schools. The DfE has said that all of the school projects in the programme will be completed by the end of 2017.

Stephen Beechey, managing director of the education and investment sector at Wates Construction, said the funding commitment was 鈥減ositive鈥�.

鈥淭he wider issue of schools which either just missed out on the first tranche of funding, or needed significant repairs rather than a full rebuild, still needed to be urgently addressed.

鈥淔or contractors, although greater clarity has been needed over work, the pipeline of available jobs has now expanded, hopefully allowing firms to co-ordinate their efforts and plan ahead that much more efficiently.鈥�