First round of priority schools revealed

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) has unveiled the details of the first schools to come to market through the government’s flagship school building programme, six months later than originally planned.

The EFA said the first batches to come to the market through the £400m directly-funded part of the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) comprised 20 schools, worth up to £154m, across the North-east, midlands and London.

The first batch of schools covers the North-east, comprising nine schools worth between £60-64m.The EFA said the tender for the schools would be released this month.

The next batch covers the midlands and comprises six schools worth between £32-36m, with tenders to be issued this month.

This is to be followed by a further batch covering London, comprising five schools worth £44-45m, with a tender expected in early November.

The EFA said there would be eight batches of directly-funded schools in total, with feasibility studies on the remaining five batches expected to be completed by January next year, with the schools to come to market soon after.

All eight batches will be procured through the EFA’s Contractors’ Framework.

Mike Green, the EFA’s director of capital, said that contractors competing for batches of schools under PSBP would not be limited on the number they can bid for or win.

He added that all 12 firms on the northern section of the academies framework attended the bidders’ day in Stockton for the north east batch.

Green also confirmed that the baseline designs and output specification that the EFA has released would not directly apply to the capital funded schools, but that it was “important that bidders understood the direction of travel”.

Work through the PSBP was initially expected to be tendered in April 2012 so construction could begin in 2012 but, as Building first revealed in March, was then pushed back to “late summer”.

EFA’s Contractors’ Framework