School building projects spared by Michael Gove face 40% cuts
The Department for Education says it has always been the intention for surviving schemes to make efficiency savings.
Those school building schemes spared by education secretary, Michael Gove, are now facing cuts in funding of 40%, despite their being given the green light when he reduced Labour's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in July.
Around 600 projects are affected and savings of £6bn have been targeted. They include some of the 33 "sample schools", trial projects by local authorities which were specifically given the go-ahead by the Department for Education in August.
Tim Byles, chief executive of Partnerships for Schools, in charge of delivering the BSF programme, told councils today that 40% efficiencies were to be sought from the 600 schools confirmed as safe in Gove's initial statement to parliament. That 600 also includes some academies and sample schools, put forward by local authorities to demonstrate a cross-section of their BSF scheme before their other projects started.
Each authority's reduction is expected to be confirmed by next month, with meetings between councils and Partnerships for Schools early next week.
The department said today that it had always been the intention for surviving schemes to make efficiency savings. Read more... (The Guardian - 22 October)
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