BSF bites the dust

Agreed: our national debt is horrendous, public spending has to be scaled back and we have to accept some significant changes. But was scrapping Building Schools for the Future a step too far?

BSF was a Labour government initiative set up to help finance the rebuild or revamp of schools. Only 180 projects have been completed and though 231 are due to start this year, these numbers are dwarfed by the 1,100 schools that had registered interest, or were engaged in a bid process, which have now been axed.

Much of the criticism of BSF centred on the over-bureaucratic bidding process that took too long and cost too much – but presumably that was a problem that could have been fixed. Thinking about the outcomes, I can’t remember ever hearing anyone criticise the intent of BSF.The eco-towns were strongly contested, plans for new housing are always controversial, and the Olympic site is under constant scrutiny, but giving children great schools to learn and play in is hard to argue against. A kid with a smart, new class-room will always be a happy customer. And in terms of seeing value for the investment, there were no risks about the property market or estimated occupancy rates, so those school improvements would all have been used to maximum effect.

To Marisa Popper, a technology teacher at Judgemeadow Community College in Leicester, one of the schools that were rebuilt in the first phase of BSF (http://www.partnershipsforschools.org.uk/), the advantages are obvious:

“The whole environment is wonderful. Being able to see and feel outdoors shining through to the corridors and classrooms really opens the space as well as the mind. It's lovely for the students to learn and grow up here. It's now calm and you can almost feel the students’ contentment. I enjoy every lesson I teach; the possibilities now seem endless”.

Now into its fifth year of delivery, BSF had developed a sense of maturity in recent months, with designers and contractors now far more experienced in working with the sector. As a public sector client, BSF’s expectations for sustainable design credentials were at the leading edge.And in terms of impacts, the connection that was being made between sustainable design and a better learning environment was critical. It will be interesting to see the educational performance results of those schools in a few years: if only we had a few more of them!

Of course the building sector is going to suffer from this decision, with many architect firms and contractors having bet heavily on the continuation of the BSF programme. But think also about the hundreds of school assemblies that have taken place in the last week where teachers have had to tell their pupils ‘sorry, you won’t be getting the new science block and playground we promised you’.

The social and community value that this programme was starting to deliver was in tune with the values of the new green deal that the coalition government has been selling so strongly, so it makes me wonder how much of a whole-life, full value assessment was made when they decided to scrap BSF. My hunch is that it was a purely financial decision. The way these improvements had begun to build social capital amongst teachers, children and parents seems to have been overlooked, which makes the decision all the more worrying.

The end of the BSF programme leaves a big question mark around the future of school improvements that Michael Gove really needs to address. To remove this programme entirely was a bold move, but it needs to be replaced by something – albeit at a reduced scale. To tell a child they are not getting a new class-room is one thing, but to then tell them the temporary Portakabin on the football pitch will now be their permanent classroom seems too unfair.