Delivery agency has built 54 schools and says it plans to open more than 200 a year by 2011
The delivery agency in charge of the government's £45bn Building Schools for the Future programme has now built 54 schools, exceeding its targets for 2008/9.
Partnerships for Schools also reiterated its commitment to opening 200 Building Schools for the Future schools a year by 2011.
It said it had "exceeded the number of schools planned to open in the past 12 months, beat the number of deals due to reach financial close, and seen more local education partnerships formed than planned for the year."
The figures showed it open another 42 schools this year, with 54 now open in total. It signed 12 deals with private sector partners, bringing the total to 30, and has now set up 18 Local Education Partnerships, compared to 10 at this time last year.
Tim Byles, PfS chief executive, compared the number of BSF schools today to the 12 that were open this time last year. He said that the achievement was testament to the hard work and commitment of those involved that business targets had been achieved despite the recession. He said: "There's no denying that the past year has provided plenty of challenges for the BSF programme, from weathering the financial storm to the intense public scrutiny that naturally comes with a project of this scale."
"I'm confident we have the expertise and processes in place to increase the pace of delivery so that by 2011 well over 200 schools will be opening each year."
In February, the National Audit Office (NAO) found that, after a rocky start, the programme was being effectively managed, had become more streamlined, was building better schools and that costs were being kept under control."
