Schools and education facilities supplement Policy and funding
How CIBSE Journal has
reported key topics in the
past 12 months. Clockwise
from top left: January 2010,
March 2009, June 2009.
> a greater requirement for energy use and carbon places through diverting cash from BSF. The BSF has
emissions to be monitored, recorded and analysed and had its share of successes, particularly by providing a
for such information to be publically available – an steady stream of work for the construction industry,
ever-increasing demand for more for less.’ keeping skilled people in jobs, raising the profile
With the government trying to make a dent in its of building services engineers, as well as placing a
huge public borrowing, and many school projects now growing emphasis on sustainability. But its running
a collaboration between public and private sectors, has been far from smooth.
Barnes believes it may even herald a new era in which In recent months doubts have been raised over the
‘the bank’s willingness to adjust to new investment ability of schools to meet the challenging zero carbon
models holds the answer’. target set for 2016. There is also some concern over
Mott MacDonald’s technical director, Gordon the lack of post-occupancy evaluations and the slow
Hudson, is of a similar mind, believing future policy speed at which new schools are being built. Moreover,
could require school designers to create ‘more many schools have achieved poor energy performance
imaginative solutions to refurbish existing school certificate gradings. It has also emerged that the
buildings, driven by a squeeze on funding’ as well as government may have underestimated build costs for
an ‘increased linkage with other community related its entire secondary school stock by up to £10bn.
investment and development’. Barnes criticised the BSF bidding process: ‘The
But designers may also be expected to become process is based on a design-and-build procurement
even more imaginative, creating schools from other method, which is both lengthy and costly, often with bid
types of existing buildings, such as warehouses and costs running into six fi gures. The process is ineffi cient
offi ces, predicts Richard Brailsford, director of building economically, which is diffi cult for a marginal industry
engineering at AECOM. He says this could help to in the current economic climate.’ Despite this, the time
overcome the current issues surrounding suitable sites given to detailed design and construction is too short,
and building costs. says Barnes. He adds: ‘The long-term concern is that
‘Sustainability will also become more crucial and the urgency of getting a building “up and running”
‘Future policy
there will be pressure to devise and incorporate penalises the application of learning and presses
new technologies that can offer significant carbon through suboptimal designs for schools intended to
will need to
reductions in school buildings while still offering value last 50 years or more. Some people in the industry
shift funding for money,’ he adds. ‘Future policy will need to shift have concerns that while technical advancements in
allowances from
funding allowances from educational improvement to delivery of education are improving, learning within
sustainability if the target of carbon neutral schools by the industry is slow, products are of variable quality and
educational
2016 is to be achieved.’ many performance outcomes may end up to be little
improvement Brailsford also believes the future could mark an better in the longer term than those of the old schools
to sustainability’
emergence of smaller ‘community’ schools, with the being replaced.’
future of the Partnership for Schools (PfS) possibly in Brailsford considers the procurement process to be
– Richard
doubt under a Conservative government. The Tories so long and over-complex that it knocks out all but the
Brailsford have also pledged to introduce 220,000 new academy biggest players. Poor funding allocations then make it >
24 CIBSE Journal February 2010 www.cibsejournal.com
CIBSEfeb10_School_pp22-24,26_policy.indd 24 25/1/10 15:43:08
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