精东影视

It doesn鈥檛 matter whether you鈥檙e a classicist, a modernist or a great clunking fist, there鈥檚 one thing that everyone involved in building recognises is vital 鈥� precision. Submitting building proposals in which you say that one measurement will be somewhere around the six-footish area and the other should be a few yards, give or take, is not the way to get past the planning committee.

But, funnily enough, when the government lays out its plans, precision is often the last thing it achieves. Sure, ministers aim for exactness. Like when they announced that by the end of 2008 there would be 200 new schools completed under their 精东影视 Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. Sounds wonderfully specific. And exciting, too. But the reality is we鈥檙e just two months away from the end of 2008 and the number of schools either rebuilt or refurbished under BSF is fewer than 40. The number of proper new-builds is fewer than 20. Choosing a target and then getting things less than 10% right isn鈥檛 precision 鈥� it鈥檚 pathetic.

And the pattern of delay that has marked the progress of BSF so far is worse even than these figures reveal. Seventy-six per cent of the first wave of BSF projects are experiencing delays. None of the second or third wave of projects were due to be completed until September 2010. However, already 70% of the second wave programmes and five of the 12 third wave programmes are facing delays.

We鈥檙e not interested in cutting the school building budget. By a single penny. We simply want to see the funds committed used more effectively.

Local authorities have to jump through significant process hoops before they even get anywhere near thinking about the actual buildings. The work required is often expensive, and consultant-heavy, with money that could be spent on bricks and mortar going on strategists and seminars.

The government tells us that they鈥檝e learned lessons from what鈥檚 gone wrong and Tim Byles, the man in charge of the quango now driving forward BSF, is a committed and intelligent guy who wants to make progress. I鈥檝e met Tim informally and liked his style but even the best individuals can become frustrated by bureaucratic behemoths, so I鈥檓 looking forward to a fuller, more formal, chat with him to see how we can speed up delivery.

I think it鈥檚 only fair people ask the opposition precisely what we would do. We would keep every penny in the BSF budget committed to improving the school estate. We鈥檙e not interested in cutting education spending, nor in cutting the school building budget. By a single penny. We simply want to see the funds committed used more effectively, and efficiently.

Sure, ministers aim for exactness. But Choosing a target and then getting things less than 10% right isn鈥檛 precision 鈥� it鈥檚 pathetic.

I鈥檓 not ideological about how we achieve greater efficiency, whether it鈥檚 through local government, new actors coming into the state sector, innovation from the construction industry or new approaches to collaboration. What matters to me is getting more schools in place as quickly as possible. That鈥檚 why I want to work with Tim and his team at Partnerships for Schools to identify why we鈥檝e had the delays we鈥檝e had, what the blockages in the pipeline are and how we can get things moving. Given the problems elsewhere in the construction industry, the skilled labour lying idle, the capacity unused, it seems to me logical to speed things up.

We鈥檝e been looking abroad to learn lessons about how to improve schools. We鈥檝e been attracted by what we saw in Sweden. In the past 15 years, more than 900 schools have opened, as a result of a reforming government allowing new organisations to enter the state sector to complement local authorities. They鈥檝e had an academy-style programme, but with schools opening up where the providers recognise there鈥檚 a demand rather than where central government dictates they should go.

We鈥檝e argued that some of the currently uncommitted BSF money should be available to help set up schools in areas of low educational attainment and high disadvantage. But it鈥檚 important to be clear here 鈥� precise, even. We鈥檙e talking about money committed to building schools being spent on school building. It鈥檚 not a cut.

In Sweden they succeeded in building these 900 schools without any state money going to fund capital investment 鈥� the school premises were paid for by transferring revenue costs to new suppliers. So what we propose could actually be more attractive to new suppliers than the Swedish system. The top aim, however, is not to make building schools more attractive to new suppliers but to make new school buildings more attractive to parents and children. And I hope we can achieve that aim by sticking, precisely, to the current spending totals.