Race starts for £120m private finance schools

The government’s schools capital agency has fired the starting gun on the procurement of contractors for its second batch of privately-financed schools.

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) has issued a contract notice for a batch of 12 schools in the North-east of England, worth up to £120m.

The EFA previously said the batch would be worth £94m.

The batch of schools is the second of five Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) batches to be procured through the government’s new Pf2 private finance initiative.

It will use a version of the PF2 model, called the “aggregator model”, which will use an organisation to provide debt funding for all batches, rather than each batch having to secure its own funding.

The EFA went out to tender on the first batch, in the Hertfordshire, Luton and Reading area, worth up to £150m, last month.

The official contract notice issued by the EFA said contractors would be asked to design, build, finance and maintain the new build schools.

It said services required are “likely to include hard facilities management services and may also include some soft facilities services”.

It said the term of the contract would include a 24 month construction phase and a 25 year operational term from the service commencement date of the final school to be completed in the batch.

The schools included in the North-east batch are:

• Mandale Mill Primary School
• Longbenton Community College
• Front Street Community Primary School
• Lingey House Primary School
• Roman Road Primary School
• Seaham School of Technology
• Bedlingtonshire Community High School
• The Duchess’s Community High School
• Laurence Jackson School
• Hylton Castle Primary School
• Hetton School
• Shiney Row Primary School

The remaining three Pf2 batches are expected to be brought to market within the next 12 months. They comprise:

• North-west (£93m, 12 schools)
• Yorkshire (£97m, seven schools)
• Midlands (£122m, eight schools)