Academies, the government's industry-sponsored secondary schools, have been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently after claims that sponsors can buy peerages. But better news is the announcement that the Academies Programme now comes under the auspices of Partnerships for Schools (PfS), the arm responsible for delivering new schools under the £40bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

PfS plans to appoint up to 10 framework contractors to build all new academies, apart from those under local authorities which are already within the BSF programme. Contractors that previously bid for academies complained about exorbitant bid costs, but under the reshuffle there will now be only one selection process.

However, local contractors that might traditionally have bid for individual school jobs could lose out.

A spokeswoman for PfS said: "Local authorities will be required to use the framework to deliver BSF schools and academies (where they have not yet entered the BSF programme) unless they can demonstrate that an alternative methodology offers better value to the public sector."

PfS advertised for framework contractors for its £2bn Academies Programme in the Official Journal of the European Union at the end of March and plans to select contractors by June.

Source

Construction Manager