Building Schools For The Future

Dubbed the biggest school building programme since Victorian times, Building Schools for the Future was Labour's £45bn grand plan to rebuild every secondary school in England. Announced by Tony Blair in 2004, the programme was about much more than replacing classrooms with leaking roofs or buildings with crumbling brickwork. It was about initiating a step-change in children's education and inspiring learning. At first Labour prioritised funds to 14 projects in 17 socially deprived local authorities, in a bid to raise their educational attainment. But a key part of the process was close involvement by staff, governors and pupils in the schools themselves. And as such they needed lots of support. It was not long before the programme slipped from its original timescale. Within two years, Tony Blair's delivery unit had stepped in to investigate why things were proceeding so slowly and how lessons could be learned. By the end of the second year of the programme, some 72 local authorities had joined the scheme, but only five had reached the position where they could start building. Local authority staff and councillors reworking the education provision in their areas argued that good planning and proper consultation was necessary to ensure that they got things right. And it is generally thought that changes to the programme did help to ensure that schools built later on were of good quality - and some were considered inspirational. The government insists it has not stopped school building altogether, despite halting over 700 projects that were in train. It has commissioned a review, headed by Sebastian James of the Dixons group, to look at how school building should be carried out in the future. It will seek to achieve "value for money" against the backdrop of the current spending constraints and make any new scheme more efficient.