£55 Billion ‘Building Schools for the Future’ Scheme Scrapped

The Government’s plan to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in England has been sidelined as part of the cuts in public spending.

The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme was aimed at transforming schools that are falling into disrepair, and was a cornerstone of the education policy of the previous Government.

Education secretary Michael Gove announced on Monday that all projects that had not reached ‘financial close’ would be scrapped. Some 706 new school buildings and services that already have contracts signed will go ahead, but 715 more will be sidelined. The move is intended to save the government £1bn a year.

After the announcement, Gove was forced to give an unreserved apology in the House of Commons when the list of schools was found to have mistakenly included a number of the sidelined projects as having been saved, much to the consternation of the affected areas.

A definitive list of the scrapped projects can be found here.

The scrapping of the programme will have a huge effect on construction and manufacturing firms. New buildings make up 53% of current projects in the scheme, with £5bn having been spent to date on the scheme and the cost of each new school typically £20-25 million.

Noble Francis, economics director of the Construction Products Association (CPA) offered a bleak assessment of the cuts.

“We are still reeling from the recession which has cost us more than 200,000 jobs, Our assessment is that capital spending on education alone will nearly halve to £4.5bn over the next few years. That will lead to further substantial job losses for our members”, said Noble.

The CPA estimates that capital spending across all sectors will fall from £69bn this year to £45bn in 2013.