School Rebuilding Project Threatened by Government Cuts
The government is scrapping the national school redevelopment scheme, and hundreds of school building projects are being affected. Education Secretary Michael Gove said that 715 of the schools that signed up for the revamp scheme will be no longer getting what they signed up for.
Since the election, Gove’s department has been looking over the Building Schools for the Future initiative that the previous Labour government had started in 2004. The department concluded that all local authority schemes that haven’t reached financial close won’t go ahead in order to save billions. Schools in the existing program, who already have the funding, will continue. Officials will be reviewing these, though, to see where they can save. There are other projects further down the scheme’s list that will be considered to see if they can make smaller revamps.
During the 6 years the scheme has been active, some 180 schools have been revamped or rebuilt, while they are about to begin construction for 231 schools. However, 1,100 have already signed up for the program but haven’t reached financial close.
Gove says that the initiative has been responsible for around one-third of his department’s capital spending, but has been troubled by tragic delays, needless bureaucracy, massive overspends and botched construction projects. He went on to call the scheme unnecessarily bureaucratic and dysfunctional, adding that it’s no surprise it can take nearly 3 years to negotiate the bureaucratic process before a single builder is commissioned or one brick is put down.
Shadow education secretary Ed Balls says the decision is a tragedy for parents and teachers who have benefited from the new facilities. He added that he will fight with his Labour colleagues to save their new schools.
National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower said that there is no excuse to leave schools ’swinging in the wind’ after being promised new buildings. Children and young people are negatively impacted by poor learning environments, she continued, and much has been done to improve the woefully run down school buildings while Labour was in power.