Bridget Phillipson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bridget Phillipson on 2014-03-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 12 March 2014, Official Report, column 250W, on schools: construction, what the construction time-scale is for each of the 198 schools with which his Department is working in the Priority School Building Programme, but at which construction has not yet started.

David Laws

We are currently working with 221 schools in the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP). We will have commenced work with all schools by the end of 2014. Before building work can begin, plans must be drawn up, contracts negotiated and planning permission secured. Construction work has already started at 24 schools (20 under main works contracts and four under early works agreements). We expect that building work will have commenced at all schools by the end of 2016. All schools will be delivered by the end of 2017, two years earlier than originally planned.

Under Building Schools for the Future (BSF), it took three years from first planning for building works to begin. We have cut this to one year under the PSBP. Had we continued with BSF timescales, no PSBP schools would yet have started construction. The first school being rebuilt under the PSBP will open in May 2014.