I am from the private sector
With unprecedented government investment and a commitment to a 15-year programme to rebuild or renew every secondary school in the country, Building Schools for the Future (BSF) presents major long-term business opportunities all over England. Partnerships for Schools (PfS) and the Department for Education want to help the private sector to achieve innovation and economies of scale, to plan long term and to develop a more standardised approach to drive efficiencies and improve quality.
PfS works with the DfE to make it easier for the private sector to work with local authorities. Designed specifically as a procurement model for BSF, Local Education Partnerships mark an evolution in public private partnerships by aligning public and private sector interests in way that has not been possible before. This model delivers real efficiencies to the local authority in procurement terms whilst at the same time increasing the likelihood that our new schools will deliver educational transformation.
LEPs:
- reduce the current burden of procuring school buildings, ICT and other services;
- speed up the procurement process - and make it more integrated;
- reduce the cost of repeat procurements (and bids) for subsequent phases of work;
- enable local authorities to procure wider services than BSF schools; and
- ensure value for money through the sharing of good practice and adherence to quality standards.
To ensure that LEPs are set up in an efficient and timely manner, PfS has produced a comprehensive set of standardised procurement and contractual documentation.
BSF is a real opportunity to showcase innovative, inspirational design and to demonstrate how it can impact on education standards and the quality of life within schools. Across the whole programme, we are looking for high-quality, sustainable projects and services. Successful partners will be those that are able to demonstrate an understanding of the broader requirements of local communities and supply chains.
Partnerships for Schools is not directly responsible for procurement for BSF - this is the Local Education Partnership (LEP) that is set up between a local authority and their select private sector partner for BSF.
Schools that are being rebuilt or refurbished under BSF - which will affect every secondary school and local authority in England over the lifetime of the programme - have considerable influence over which products and services are procured with their BSF funding. This ranges from planning the overall design and ICT infrastructure to choosing furniture and sports equipment. Companies of all sizes, both with established reputations and new, should therefore market themselves directly to local authorities. This could be on a national basis, through journals and events, or locally through networking events or direct contact.
A list of the current supply chains to BSF projects that have reached financial close is available to download on this page. This information is also listed in the individual local authority pages in the programme section of this website.
For national marketing through events and advertising, the following links might be useful:
(The forthcoming events page of this website lists other events that may also be of interest to you.)
Companies that may be involved with networking events for BSF and schools renewal are listed on the useful links page of this website.
For direct contact, this website contains a list of the local authorities that are currently engaged on the BSF programme. Each local authority will have a BSF team running the project, and may well feature local BSF news and information about schools and shortlisted bidders on their websites. This website has links to the BSF pages of local authority websites.
It is also worth noting that BSF is not the only current source of schools funding. The Primary Capital Programme, which is rebuilding and refurbishing primary schools all over England, and the One School pathfinder funding that targets schools in local authorities that are not yet engaged on BSF all offer opportunities to be involved in the education supply chain.
