5 July 2010: Government
announcement - Building Schools for the Future
The government decided on Monday 5 July to stop the BSF
programme completely for any project that had not reached
‘financial close’ stage (with a few exceptional cases for those
that were very close to that stage). As the Suffolk BSF programme
was at the start of its procurement, the government decision has
the effect of stopping the Suffolk BSF programme.
The government issued a list of all individual school projects
and all but two of Suffolk’s were ‘stopped’. These two are
Holywells and Felixstowe which are classed as ‘Academy – for
discussion’.
In relation to capital investment in Holywells and Felixstowe we
await a decision, which is expected by the end of this month.
In making its announcement, the Department for Education
launched a comprehensive review of all capital investment in
schools, early years, colleges and sixth forms, with a view to
guiding future spending decisions. This review will:
· Look at how best to meet parental
demand;
· Make current design and procurement
cost-effective and efficient; and
· Overhaul how capital is allocated
and targeted.
The County Council will do all that it can to ensure the county
is in the best possible position to attract future government
investment for schools.
Progress to date
Following the approval of
our
Strategy for Change (Part 2) Partnership for Schools
(PfS) approved our
Outline Business Case (OBC) on 28 April 2010.
Having received approval of the OBC we issued the OJEU
(Official Journal of the European Union) Notice on 29 April 2010.
This notice formally starts the procurement of our wave six
programme.
We have received a level of comfort for each of the projects in
relation to Town Planning matters. In this regard we have received
Outline Planning Permission for the majority of
projects.