School building plan scrapped to save £1bn
Updated on 05 July 2010
Education Secretary Michael Gove tells Channel 4 News why he is scrapping a major school building project put in motion by Labour, as a separate row is sparked over civil service pay.
Mr Gove has called time on the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, which he said had failed to meet its own targets. He described it as "massively flawed" and "over-bureaucratic".
Announcing a review of capital investment in Britain's schools, Mr Gove said work on 715 of the schools due to be rebuilt or refurbished through BSF would be halted.
He told the Commons that the programme, which represents one third of departmental capital spending, was characterised by overspend, delays and botched construction projects.
More Channel 4 News stories on the spending cuts
- FactCheck: spending cuts and civil service pay
- Ministers to slash civil servant pay-offs
- Civil service pay-offs: coalition changes
Mr Gove said the government would instead prioritise projects to raise attainment of the poorest including the recruitment of hundreds of more teachers into disadvantaged areas through the charity Teach First.
BSF projects that have reached financial closure will go ahead as planned. Mr Gove said the 706 schools that will go forward will include 386 new build projects and 262 refurbishments.
He has appointed a five-strong team to review all capital investment in schools, early years, colleges and sixth forms. Led by Sebastian James, group operations director of DSG International, the review will guide future decisions over the next spending review period from 2011-12 to 2014-15.
Future capital investment in education up to 2015 will target schools in the worst condition, cut red tape, and tackle urgent demand due to rising birth-rates.
But the shadow education secretary, Ed Balls, said the government had abandoned "a once in a generation change" to tackle educational failure.
He said the decision was a "hammer blow" to thousands of students, parents and teachers who would not get the school that they were promised. Mr Balls also challenged Mr Gove to publish a list of the schools affected by the cuts.
Government faces anger over plans to cut compensation packages to civil servants
"The reality about pay is the civil service is up to 7 per cent behind comparable jobs in the public sector and even more in the private sector.”
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, Radio 4 Today, 5 July 2010
FactCheck investigates:
In the age of austerity, the gloves are coming off. After weekend reports that government departments were being asked to draw up worst-case plans for 40 per cent cuts, today the government announced plans to crack down on civil servants’ redundancy packages.
This prompted outrage from the biggest civil service union, which said industrial action would be an "inevitability" if pay-offs were slashed. In these straitened times, some might think that smacks of 70s-style union militancy. But Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, said that civil service pay levels were lagging behind not just those of private companies, but also other state employees. So how tight are Whitehall pay cheques?
Read more: FactCheck analysis
