Listening to the radio today I heard the gov minister detail new spending, or lack of it now, on new educational buildings.

In his speech he mentioned the current bureaucracy involved in building new schools.

The BSF process had nine meta-stages: preparation for BSF; project initiation; strategic planning; business case development; procurement planning; procurement; contractual close; construction; and then operation. Each of these meta-stages had a series of sub-stages. Meta-stage 3—strategic planning—for example, had another nine sub-stages. Step 1 required local authorities to produce a strategic overview of the education strategy. Step 2 required local authorities to produce a school and further education estate summary. Step 5 required local authorities to produce another strategic overview—this time with “detail and delivery”. Step 6 required local authorities to use the school and FE estate summary to develop an “estates strategy”. Only once we had reached step 9—once the Department for Education had given approval—did part 2 of the “strategy for change” become complete. This level of bureaucracy was absurd and had to go.

For those who doubt that money was wasted on the process, I have here just the first three of more than 60 official documents that anyone negotiating the BSF process needed to navigate. This whole process has been presided over by the Department for Education and the quango Partnerships for Schools, and at various times has involved another body, 4ps, and Partnerships UK. Local authorities involved in this process have employed a Partnerships for Schools director, a Department for Education project adviser, a 4ps adviser and an enabler from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment—another non-departmental public body.

Local authorities have also had to set up a project governance and delivery structure, normally including a project board of 10 people, a separate project team of another 10 people and a further, separate, stakeholder board of 20 people. They formed the core group supervising the project. Beyond them, local authorities were expected to engage a design champion, a client design adviser and a 4ps gateway review team—a group of people who produce six separate gateway reviews over the course of the whole project. It is perhaps no surprise that it can take almost three years to negotiate the bureaucratic process of BSF before a single builder is engaged or brick laid.

Some councils that entered the process six years ago have only just started building new schools. Another project starting this year is three years behind schedule. By contrast, Hong Kong international airport, which was built on a barren rock in the South China sea and can process 50 million passenger movements every year, took just six years to build from start to finish.

I hope they get rid of the 3 quangoes and reams of paperwork I now have to navigate just to get a sniff of a School runs tender...Tolstoy could have Written "War and Peace" in the time it takes to submit a Council tender this year..and if it aint submitted just right then no tender at all

Would I be right in saying an operator has to have the equivalent in funds of the cost of the contract term available before its awarded

Would I be right in saying an operator has to have the equivalent in funds of the cost of the contract term available before its awarded

One company round our way has spent £1million getting all it's quotes ready for tender. Who's going to pay them back? They are going to make staff redundant.

No..it can be as little as 0.8% of the total Contract Value...if it werent then the little man would need some TLC.."

You never know Miss Toots may pay another visit

I hope they get rid of the 3 quangoes and reams of paperwork I now have to navigate just to get a sniff of a School runs tender...Tolstoy could have Written "War and Peace" in the time it takes to submit a Council tender this year..and if it aint submitted just right then no tender at all

A local association applies for a grant towards cameras and is given 50% funding for 5 camera systems after 12 months of arguing.

The police inform the council that they think a certain amount of the money the association got should go to ethnic drivers, because accroding to statistics, they are the ones that suffer abuse.

The association who applied for the funding has no ethnic members, in despite of many months worth of trying to persuade members to join.

Incidentally, according to reports the ethnic drivers knew nothing of the funding and the suggestion was made by the local police.

CC