Feature Story

Waves of optimism

BSF, PFI and Academies Programme Manager Rebecca Spore outlines the unique approach the county has taken to transforming education.

Kent's involvement in PPP/PFI is a long-standing one. We were one of the first authorities to take forward a PFI project and we currently have two contracts operational covering seven PFI schools in the county. With regard to the BSF Programme, in October 2008 we established our first Local Education Partnership (KLEP1). Under the old-style PFI model, we awarded contracts to the value of £150m; under BSF, the KLEP1 contract is just under £1bn. We are entering our second LEP procurement, which will deliver a further £1.2bn of investment in our secondary school estate.

Kent has always embraced the opportunities provided through the school rebuilding programmes, and approached them with the view to challenging perceptions of what schools should offer and where they should be located. For Kent, BSF is transformational, and our educational vision provides a strong strategy and rationale for achieving a step change in school designs, and the impact this has on improving teaching and learning in Kent.

Kent is particularly conscious of the need to engage stakeholder groups such as pupils, teachers, communities and others in terms of how we develop our visions. As part of the initial scoping of the schemes, we have sought the views of pupils about what they would like to see in terms of education and what is important to them. Judging from the positive feedback we have received to date, they have valued the opportunity to contribute and are excited at seeing their ideas taking shape in the final designs.

Sustainability
Kent is additionally focused on issues of sustainability. The target for all BSF schemes is BREAM 'excellent' or 'very good'.

From the beginning, we have looked at how we orientate the building and how we position it on-site for maximising the solar potential. In some of our first wave of BSF schools, we have ground source heat pumps, biomass boilers and other technologies providing a whole package that sits within the sustainability envelope.

Kent's approach has always been to set out a high standard first, including the identification of exemplar schemes, both national and international, as a benchmark for the private sector to work towards. Although we cannot restrict bidders to specific solutions, we do encourage them to look at examples of best practice and specific design features, and how they might apply. To support this, we have developed some high level strategic documents: the Kent Design Guide and the Kent Template for School Design, which provide clear links between KCC policies and exemplars of best practice.

We are also conscious of the need for these new buildings to be 'intelligent', and communicate their environment and energy consumption in real-time. This can be used within the curriculum to raise awareness of climate change issues and the contribution that students can make to reducing energy consumption.

Strategy
Kent entered the BSF Programme in Wave 3, and is now allocated to every subsequent wave. Our prioritisation of the schools within them has always been to target those schools that most need the investment to help raise standards and make a step change in transformation. Buildings are only one part of that – it is where we have targeted our funding that really matters.

In terms of BSF, the LEP model is complicated, time consuming and, possibly, bureaucratic. However, if you are running a procurement exercise for a £1bn contract, these checkpoints are necessary. It would streamline the process nationally if experienced authorities, those that have already secured a major contract of this type, could adopt a more focused process, reducing both costs and the timescales for completion.

Multi-LEP
Kent's BSF & Academies Programme is the largest in England, covering over 134 schools and with an estimated capital investment in excess of £2.7bn. The Birmingham BSF programme is the biggest in terms of the value of work going through one procurement vehicle, but we have gone for a multi-LEP approach establishing two partners. Our members felt that having one partner delivering that amount of work was not the right move. We wanted to have contestability between partnerships and so we will have our delivery vehicles running alongside each other throughout the building phase. If one does not perform, then we can move projects to the other and vice versa. That provides an element of competition still between the two LEPs even though they have been announced as preferred bidder for their programmes.

The multi-LEP process also has benefits in the long term. When you bring projects forward after the initial competition wave, they go through the New Project Approval Process, which has checkpoints regarding deliverability and value for money. If the LEP proposals do not meet our requirements or demonstrate value for money, or there is poor performance against the Key Performance Indicators, they can lose their exclusivity and we can consider offering the project to our second LEP.

The multi-LEP strategy is unique to Kent at the moment, but then we are the largest authority with the largest programme. Without the multi-LEP strategy, we would be forced to undertake another time consuming procurement if the scheme could not be delivered.

Rebecca Spore
BSF, PFI and Academies Programme Manager
Kent County Council

www.kent.gov.uk