Building Schools for the Future Outline Business Case
Friday 10 October 2008 INDEX
Section Contents Page
1 Executive Summary 1
2 Background 7
3 The Projects 12
4 ICT Service Provision 39
5 Value for Money 55
6 Affordability 62
7 Readiness to Deliver 73
8 Leading and Managing Change 91
Appendices Options Appraisal and Feasibility Approach for Sample Appendix 1 Annex 1 Schools
Appendix 1 Annex 2 Abnormal Costs Pro-forma
Appendix 1 Annex 3 Options Appraisal for Non Sample Schools
Appendix 1 Annex 4 Accommodation Schedules
Appendix 2 Annex 1 Sample Schools - Delivery of Strategy for Change
Appendix 2 Annex 2 ICT Output Specification
Appendix 2 Annex 3 Output Specification
Appendix 3 Annex 1 Value for Money Qualitative Assessment - narrative
Value for Money Qualitative Assessment – soft Appendix 3 Annex 2 services narrative Quantitative Evaluation spreadsheet including Appendix 3 Annex 3 Opportunity Bias
Appendix 4 Annex 1 Risk Matrix – Risk Management
Appendix 4 Annex 2 ICT Risk Allocation Matrix Appendix 5 Annex 1 Unitary Charge Model Summary
Appendix 5 Annex 2 Unitary Charge sources and uses of funds statements
Unitary Charge Model and Inputs – Noel-Baker/St Appendix 5 Annex 3 Martins scheme Unitary Charge Model and Inputs – Lees Brook Appendix 5 Annex 4 scheme
Appendix 6 Funding Allocation Model
Appendix 7 Annex 1 Affordability Model – PFI programme
Appendix 7 Annex 2 Capital Cash Flow
Appendix 7 Annex 3 Programme Summary
Appendix 7 Annex 4 ICT Cost Model
Appendix 8 Annex 1 Accounting Treatment
Appendix 8 Annex 2 Letters from S151 Officer to External Auditor
Appendix 8 Annex 3 Letters to S151 Officer from External Auditor
Appendix 9 Approvals
Appendix 9 Annex 1 Planning permissions
Appendix 9 Annex 2 Letters of comfort Cabinet reports: 8 July 2008 - Consultation on the re-location of St Martins Special Schools 30 September 2008 - BSF Scope of the LEP Appendix 9 Annex 3 30 September 2008 - BSF Updated Financial Position 28 October 2008 - BSF Lifecycle Costs for Secondary Schools - Draft 28 October 2008 - BSF Outline Business Case - Draft
Appendix 9 Annex 4 School Forum report
Appendix 9 Annex 5 Governor Agreements
Appendix 9 Annex 6 Governor Agreements - Lifecycle Appendix 9 Annex 7 Governor Agreements - ICT
Appendix 9 Annex 8 S151 Officer letters
Appendix 10 OJEU Notice
Appendix 11 OBC Required KPI Data – Education
Appendix 12 PfS Approvals Checklist
Appendix 13 Responses to issues raised in SfC 2
Appendix 14 Updated Schools Chart
Appendix 15 Choice and Diversity proposals
Appendix 16 Notice of Declaration
Derby Secondary Schools Physical Education, Sport Appendix 17 and Physical Activity Core Offer
Appendix 18 Personalised Learning
Appendix 19 14-19 Curriculum Options
Derby’s Alternative Provision and Plan for Pupils with Appendix 20 Behavioural Emotional and Social Disorders
Appendix 21 Updated Phasing Table
Appendix 22 Pupil projections for agreed housing developments
Appendix 23 Annex 1 Change Management Plan
Appendix 23 Annex 2 ICT Change Management Activities and Groups
Derby BSF Programme Project Board terms of Appendix 24 reference and membership
Appendix 25 CVs for key members of the BSF Project Team
Appendix 26 The BSF Project Delivery Budget
Appendix 27 Derby BSF Programme’s Soft Market Testing SECTION 1: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1.1 BACKGROUND
Derby joined the national Wave 5 of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in October 2007. Our Strategy for Change Part 1 (SfC1) was submitted on 19 December 2007 and its Strategy for Change Part 2 (SfC2) on 9 May 2008. Both documents have received formal approval from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
The DCSF outlined areas for further development in our Outline Business Case (OBC) in its approval letter of 25 July 2008. Appendix 13 sets out how we have responded to the issues raised. We have updated the chart supplied with SfC1 in Appendix 14.
The SfC 2 submission (SfC2) set out the scope of our transformational programme. The OBC builds on the proposals set out in our SfC to demonstrate that the programme of works is achievable and affordable.
There have been no changes to the overall context since the approval of our SfC1 and SfC2. Discussions around our Choice and Diversity proposals have continued with Partnerships for Schools (PfS), Office for the Schools Commissioner (OSC) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
Since the submission of SfC2, the current position on the Choice and Diversity proposals for Derby are summarised below. These have been developed in very close consultation with the OSC, the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, and the Corporate Director for Children and Young People.
The Authority has been exceptionally pro-active in encouraging school governing bodies to consider all aspects of choice and diversity. The delivery of curriculum change and our city strategy for reducing exclusions envisages schools within our wider Education Improvement Partnership working in clusters with a great deal of federated endeavour. Emerging federations are soft at this stage, but some may well progress to become harder and more formal as the benefits of collaboration become clearer.
At this point in the process, the proposals for Sinfin Academy are moving forward on a time-scale that should see a formal opening in September, 2009. Proposals have also gone before the Council's Cabinet for Bemrose Community School to develop as a National Challenge Trust School, or an Academy, and these have been shared with National Strategies and the OSC. A copy of this report is attached as Appendix 15.
Additionally, six other secondary schools and one special school have indicated that they will be putting forward expressions of interest in November to enter the supported programme to become Trusts. Several of these have already firmed up their proposed focus and identified potential lead partners.
The Authority will continue to offer consultancy support to ensure that the current momentum is maintained and schools aided to achieve their goals. A more detailed position is contained in Appendix 15.
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Sinfin Community School, recently re-built as a BSF Pathfinder, will now be drawn into the capital programme with the construction of a sixth form centre.
Summary of key changes from SfC2:
• proposals for Sinfin Academy are moving forward on a time-scale that should see a formal opening in September 2009 • Proposals approved by Council Cabinet for Bemrose Community School to develop as a National Challenge Trust School, or an Academy • Six secondary schools and one special school have indicated that they will be putting forward expressions of interest in November to enter the supported programme to become Trusts.
Apart from these changes, there have been no further amendments to the corporate or educational strategy since the approval of SfC1 and SfC2.
The schools that will be drawn into the BSF programme for capital investment are confirmed as:
• Noel-Baker Community School and Language College • St Martins School • Derby Moor Community Sports College • Lees Brook Community Sports College • Bemrose School • Littleover Community School • Saint Benedict Catholic School and Performing Arts College • St Clare’s School • Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) - Key Stage 4 provision • Chellaston School • Murray Park School • Woodlands School • West Park School • St Andrews School • Sinfin Community School
Four further schools recently re-built are also drawn into the programme through the ICT managed service. These are:
• da Vinci Community College • Merrill College • Ivy House School • Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School)- Key Stage 3 provision
Since submission of our SfC2, we have carried out a number of school level investigations and surveys to confirm that the proposals for these schools are deliverable and affordable within the funding envelope. To mitigate the risks to the programme, we have conducted searches and sought a level of planning comfort for all sites. Outline planning permission has been obtained for the sample schemes. We
- 2 - have registered our sample and phase 1b schemes and are in the process of registering the remaining sites. All of this work has been carried out in line with PfS requirements and is summarised in this document.
The Notice of Declaration is attached as Appendix 16.
The OBC also sets out the resources for procurement and delivery of the programme which are set out in Section 7.
The OBC was approved by Project Board on 6 October 2008 and the Council’s Chief Officer Group on 8 October 2008. As previously agreed with PfS, the OBC has been submitted by the required submission deadline of 10 October 2008 prior to Cabinet approval. The OBC is scheduled for consideration by Cabinet on 28 October 2008 and the relevant documentation will then be forwarded to PfS. A copy of the draft Cabinet report is included in Appendix 9 Annex 3.
1.2 THE PROJECT
Derby City Council will be procuring a Local Education Partnership (LEP) to deliver our BSF programme and to procure an integrated managed service to deliver Information and Communication Technology to schools. Derby’s LEP will be given exclusivity to the provision of:
• Building Schools for the Future (BSF) funded capital works to schools within the BSF programme procured under both Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Design and Build (D and B) contracts. • Maintenance and facilities management (FM) services for schools procured under the BSF PFI contracts. • A managed service to deliver ICT to the schools within the BSF programme including those which are not subject to BSF funded capital works.
In addition, the LEP may be invited to carry out additional services which are set out in Section 7 including capital works funded through the Primary Capital Programme, non BSF funded works on school sites and the provision of ICT services to primary schools. It is not proposed for the LEP to provide FM services for Design and Build (D and B) schools. However, there is an option for the LEP provider to provide these services in the future (to be negotiated after Financial Close) subject to demonstrating value for money.
The scope of Derby’s BSF programme comprises the rebuilding of four schools, the refurbishment of ten schools, a new build sixth form centre at one proposed academy. A further four schools, which have recently been rebuilt through PFI and targeted capital funding, will be drawn into the programme through the provision of an ICT managed service. Within the programme, there are three special schools and a pupil referral unit (Kingsmead Special School).
Appendix 1 Annex 1 shows the proposed scope of works for sample schools and Appendix 1 Annex 3 for non-sample schools. Four changes have been made to the scope of works since the submission of SfC 2:
- 3 - o Bemrose School will now be a major refurbishment, not a new build; o A sixth form centre will be built at the proposed academy at Sinfin; o St Andrew’s School will receive more new build accommodation; and o The Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) will have KS3 provision on four mainstream secondary school sites and two new KS4/5 bases.
The two sample schemes have not changed from the two schemes put forward in the SfC. The first is a new build, PFI project - Noel-Baker Community School and St Martins School. Noel-Baker is a 1,552 place 11-18 school. St Martins is an 80 place 11-16 special school, which will be co-located on the current Noel-Baker site. The two schools will share some facilities, including catering and learning support.
The second sample scheme is Derby Moor Community Sports College, which is a D and B refurbishment scheme. Derby Moor is a 1,545 place 11-18 school, which will have elements of new build, refurbishment and re-modelling.
1.3 VALUE FOR MONEY
The procurement route for each of the projects in the BSF programme has been selected in accordance with BSF guidance. The guidance states “evidence suggests that PFI offers best Value for Money (VfM) when delivering completely new build schools and a programme level assessment has been made that new build schools will be delivered through PFI contracts”.
In accordance with Treasury Guidance “Value for Money Assessment Guidance” (November 2006), the Council has considered VfM for the three schools it is proposed to procure through PFI contracts which are the Noel-Baker and St Martins scheme and the Lees Brook scheme. The preferred procurement option has been qualitatively determined with a separate soft services assessment followed by a quantitative assessment, which together determine value for money. On this basis, the PFI option demonstrates value for money.
1.4 AFFORDABILITY
It is the intention of the Council to contain the capital costs of the BSF programme, whether procured conventionally or under PFI contracts, within the funding envelope provided by PfS. With the exception of a sum of £1.5m which the Council has committed from its own capital resources, to fund expenditure outside school sites. This includes traffic works, which are required as a condition of planning permission, and which cannot therefore be funded from the funding envelope.
The Council understands that the funding envelope for capital expenditure on ICT will be paid by grant from the DCSF, and will contain expenditure within this sum.
All schools to be included in an ICT managed service have agreed to an annual contribution at a level estimated to cover outgoings for an initial period of five years, with a further one year option.
The Schools Forum and the individual schools to be procured under PFI contracts have agreed to the contributions estimated to be necessary to fund the ongoing
- 4 - revenue costs and “affordability gap” of the PFI projects over the lifetime of the contracts.
On this basis, the programme as a whole is affordable and this is supported by the Section 151 officer letter at Appendix 9 Annex 8.
After a preliminary review of the proposed PFI transaction, the Council’s external financial adviser is satisfied that that the project should secure an off balance sheet opinion.
1.5 READINESS TO DELIVER
As detailed in our SfC2 submission, Derby City Council has strong capacity to deliver the BSF programme. The project structures including the BSF Project Board and BSF Core Group facilitate timely decision making and the broader involvement of our stakeholders.
There is a dedicated Core Project Team, whose expertise and confidence has continued to grow and the project remains on schedule. We have recently strengthened the team to include a full-time ICT Education Lead Officer and a Client Design Adviser (CDA). Each work stream is forwarded by a full-time dedicated lead either within the core project team, or an identified full-time lead supported by high quality and experienced external advisers.
The project will follow the revised procurement process set by PfS Schools and a project plan for this phase is set out in Section 7. Work to prepare for the procurement has been on-going throughout the development of the OBC including early engagement with potential bidders through soft market testing sessions.
The Council recognises the resource intensive nature of the procurement process and will draw on its excellent track record of procurement to put in place structures and resources to support this.
This work continues to be resourced by a dedicated core budget to support the development phase of the project. The Council also recognises the need to put in place resources beyond the appointment of the preferred bidder to manage the LEP and later phase project developments, and the BSF delivery budget is being reviewed accordingly.
1.6 LEADING AND MANAGING CHANGE
We recognise that the step-change we are about to effect through BSF will have massive implications for the ways in which schools, their partners and the wider Authority will work in future. If we are to make the most of the opportunities around BSF, our education and building transformation programmes must be supported by an extensive and inclusive change management strategy.
Change Management will be led from the centre, but be focused primarily on the schools. We have recognised a number of key transformation objectives and identified the resources we require to successfully effect these. They include the need to:
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• Ensure that the Authority has recruited sufficient specialist personnel to develop the education, ICT, design and build functions required, in addition to informing and training the existing workforce where required;
• Carry out an extensive scoping exercise upon which ICT managed services can be specified and procured;
• Extend and develop Choice and Diversity through supporting the process of establishing Trusts;
• Ensure schools and Authority have sufficient capacity to maintain existing operations through a time of change so that the current cohort of young people do not have their education disrupted;
• Ensure effective implementation of personalised learning which is the foundation stone for the high levels of attainment to which all our schools are committed;
• Provide personnel Support for school staff who may be affected by re- structuring;
• Support Curriculum reform, within both the KS3 and 14-19 continuums;
• Secure the Authority’s Locality Strategy by involving multi-agency teams, members of the wider community and other key stakeholders;
• Each individual school has been assisted to develop a Change Management Strategy of its own and key elements of these are included in their vision statements.
- 6 - SECTION 2: BACKGROUND
2.1 CONTEXT
Derby City Council joined the Buildings Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in October 2007 and is part of the national Wave 5 of the programme covering the years 2010 to 2014. Derby’s programme will be delivered in one wave with development scheduled in three phases. Construction work is planned to start in 2010 and finish in 2014.
The development phase of the programme has progressed to agreed timescales. The Strategy for Change Part 1 (SfC1) was submitted on 19 December 2007 and received approval. Our Strategy for Change Part 2 (SfC2) setting out the scope of our transformational programme was submitted on 9 May 2008, and received approval from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) in July 2008.
The BSF programme and the proposals in this Outline Business Case (OBC) build on these submissions.
2.2 THE CORPORATE VISION
“We recognise the strength of the city is linked to the education and skills of all individuals, the motivation of people to learn throughout life and the commitment of employers and learning providers. We are working with partners to encourage lifelong learning and achievement by focusing on two key outcomes: improving achievement and narrowing gaps in attainment; providing learning opportunities to raise skill levels for all” (Derby Corporate Plan 2007-10).
The Corporate priorities and context set out in the approved Strategy for Change remain valid. Derby’s programme is driven by our corporate vision. One of the Council’s key corporate priorities is to support everyone in learning and achieving.
The Council aims to encourage lifelong learning and achievement by:
• Improving educational achievement and narrowing the gaps in attainment; • Providing learning opportunities to raise skills levels.
The BSF programme provides us with the opportunity to reinforce these aims and transform teaching and learning in the city. BSF is more than just a buildings programme, it will be used to create environments in which young people feel more engaged and motivated, and can realise their full potential. The aim is to replace and renovate all secondary school buildings in the City.
2.3 STRATEGIC OVERVIEW
2.3.1 Strategic objectives for Derby’s BSF programme
The key strategic objectives detailed in the Strategy for Change remain valid. Derby’s BSF programme will be used to create environments in which young people feel more
- 7 - engaged and motivated, and can realise their full potential. The objectives for Derby’s BSF Programme are to support this by:
y Better enabling young people to meet their personal targets and aspirations by allowing improved access to an expanded range of curricular opportunities; y Offering stimulating learning environments based upon creative building designs and flexible spaces, within which true personalised learning can take place; y Using 21st Century ICT to underpin a dynamic and challenging curriculum within which young people and their families can develop as independent learners supported by highly-trained teachers; y Supporting the development of the 14-19 curriculum through introducing the full range of diplomas, accessible wherever Derby learners are located; y Providing resources and spaces within which vulnerable groups, for example, young people with special educational needs and new arrivals for whom English is an additional language, can have their needs assessed and addressed; y Ensuring that poor performance in schools is eradicated and that standards improve to levels significantly better than the national average.
These objectives have informed the options appraisal process and are fully reflected in the OBC proposals.
2.3.2 Developments since SfC1 and SfC2
The strategic context set out in SfC1 and SfC2 submissions remains unchanged. However, discussions around our Choice and Diversity proposals have continued with PfS and DCSF. These proposals have been further refined since SfC2 was approved as outlined below:
• Proposals for Sinfin Academy are moving forward on a time-scale that should see a formal opening in September 2009; • Proposals approved by Council Cabinet for Bemrose School to develop as a National Challenge Trust School, or an Academy. Further information can be found in Appendix 15; • Six secondary schools and one special school have indicated that they will be putting forward expressions of interest in November to enter the supported programme to become Trusts as set out in Appendix 15; • The BSF Physical Education, Sport and Physical Activity Stakeholder Group has now agreed its Secondary Schools Physical Education, Sport and Physical Activity Core Offer. This sets out priorities and aspirations regarding the development of sports facilities on school sites. It is attached at Appendix 17. • Further analysis of the authority’s current position on personalised learning and future needs has been completed and is attached as Appendix 18. • The range of 14-19 curriculum options has been further developed and is attached as Appendix 19. • The SfC2 submission contained proposals for Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) provision. This provision is currently delivered through specific PRU bases and Kingsmead Special School. To date, Derby’s BSF programme has worked up proposals for the provision of specialist bases for Pupil Referral Unit provision for KS3 and 4 and these proposals are set out in the OBC. The current strategy is for Kingsmead Special School to manage the PRU provision on
- 8 - behalf of the authority with provision across a number of sites. Kingsmead is a special school for pupils with Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties (BESD) and as such has a governing body for a maintained school. The authority is seeking to disestablish the Pupil Referral Unit and make provision through Kingsmead by adding non-statemented pupils to the role of the school. The authority has applied for a Power to Innovate to allow for this provision and a decision by DCSF on this is expected in the Autumn Term 2008. Derby’s plan for alternative provision for BESD pupils is attached as Appendix 20. As this change is currently proceeding, for the purpose of the OBC the estates proposals are still referred to as the Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School). These proposals have been discussed with our PfS Education Director.
These proposals have been developed in close consultation with the OSC, our PfS Director and our PfS Education Director. Apart from these changes, there have been no further amendments to the corporate or educational strategy since the approval of SFC1 and SFC2. The context and background to the project remain as presented in the above strategic documents.
A full response to outstanding SfC2 issues is attached as Appendix 13.
2.4 KEY ESTATE PRIORITIES
Since the SfC2 submission, the scope of Derby’s programme has grown to incorporate a further three sites. In addition, work towards OBC has progressed and changes have been made to the plans put forward in the SfC2 submission for some of the schools in the programme:
• Bemrose School will be a major refurbishment, not a new build: the SfC proposal for Bemrose was to demolish and replace all existing buildings except the current sports hall and dining block. The school’s main building has recently been nominated for the City Council’s Local List and is situated in a prominent position on one of the main roads into the city. During discussions with Development Control and Conservation Officers, it became clear that it would be very difficult to obtain planning consent to demolish and replace this building. Our technical advisors have worked with the school to develop a refurbishment proposal that will enable the school to deliver its education vision. The revised option is for the retention and refurbishment of the front part of the main block, with the demolition of the side wings and the modern infill block. The proposals also now include a 200 place sixth form centre.
• St Andrew’s School will receive more new build accommodation: the SfC proposal for St Andrew’s included remodelling of some existing accommodation to create larger teaching spaces and new build extensions to create further teaching space and a larger school hall. As work towards OBC has been carried out, it has become apparent that the school’s floor area would still be significantly lower than Building Bulletin 77 (BB77) recommendations, even with the proposed new build. A revised scheme has therefore been agreed with the school to bring the floor area closer to that suggested by BB77. The remodelling and extensions to provide improved classroom spaces will still go
- 9 - ahead, along with the construction of a new sports hall with associated changing and toilet facilities. This will mean that the current hall will no longer need to be used for PE. The post-16 area of the school will be extended to provide a common room and kitchen facilities. Parts of the school’s residential unit, which is currently only used after school hours, will be refurbished so that it can be used for meetings and reviews during the school day.
• The Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) will have KS3 provision on four mainstream secondary school sites and two new KS4/5 bases: when the SfC part 2 document was submitted, plans for the PRU (Kingsmead Special School) were still under discussion. Further work has been carried out during the development of OBC and the preferred option for the PRU (Kingsmead Special School) has now been confirmed. Extra accommodation will be provided on four mainstream secondary school sites to provide units for KS3 pupils who have been excluded from school. Two new central bases will be provided for KS4/5 PRU (Kingsmead Special School) pupils. The first will be on the former site of Ivy House Special School on Bateman Street, which is moving into a new building on a new site in 2009. This base will offer a range of vocational courses and some core placements. The second will be an extension to the PRU’s (Kingsmead Special School) current Southgate Education Centre building, which is adjacent to St Martins School’s current site. The Southgate building will be refurbished and extended onto the footprint of the current St Martin’s School. This base will provide core placements, some vocational placements and provision for pupils with BESD. The former Ivy House site on Bateman Street will be redeveloped in Phase 2 of Derby’s BSF programme and the Southgate redevelopment will be part of Phase 3, and will start once St Martins School has moved to its new building on the Noel-Baker Community School site.
• Sinfin Community School: this school has recently been re-built as a BSF Pathfinder School following a fire in 2006 and re-opened in September 2008. The school will be drawn into the programme through the ICT managed service and the construction of a sixth form block. It is proposed for academy status and the Expression of Interest at Sinfin, approved by DCSF, includes provision for a 200 place sixth form centre which will be procured and built through the LEP. The scope of Derby’s programme has increased to include this further site and options for this provision are included in this OBC.
• Sixth form centres at schools - Derby Moor Community Sports College and Littleover Community School: Following a re-examination of the overall spread of post 16 provision across the city, an additional 100 places have been allocated to Derby Moor Community Sports College taking the school’s total number of post 16 places to up to 215. Post 16 numbers at Littleover Community School will remain at 350. There is no change to the overall number of post 16 places agreed with PfS for the Funding Allocation Model and this is simply a reallocation of places following further work on pupil numbers. These changes have been agreed with PfS.
These changes mean that the scope of Derby’s overall BSF programme has increased. To summarise, Derby’s BSF programme will now be delivered as a
- 10 - single wave covering 11 secondary schools, three special schools and Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) provision which will be delivered over two central standalone units and four satellite units on mainstream school sites.
The Summary Phasing Table submitted in our SfC has been updated to incorporate these changes. It is included as Appendix 21 to this OBC.
Three additional secondary schools recently re-built will also be included in the ICT project including adoption of the managed service. Further information is available on this in Section 4.
- 11 - SECTION 3: THE PROJECTS
3.1 OPTIONS ANALYSIS AND FEASIBILITY
This section of the Outline Business Case (OBC) describes the approach adopted to carry out the feasibility studies at each school within Derby’s programme. It sets out how the agreed scope of works at each school was identified. It also details the additional investigations carried out and approvals sought since the submission of our Strategy for Change Part 2 (SfC2) to confirm the validity of the options for each school.
The methodology adopted and the resulting programme of works is outlined below.
3.2 OPTIONS APPRAISAL METHODOLOGY
The purpose of the options appraisal process was to ensure delivery of the key aims for BSF investment, which was detailed in our Strategy for Change Part 1 (SfC1) submission and re-stated in Section 2.3 of this document.
The methodology was set to ensure that each proposal:
• was set within the Authority’s strategy for educational transformation as set out in our SfC and Section 1.1 of this OBC; • delivered the school’s education vision with minimal disruption; • addressed condition, sufficiency, suitability and demand for places within site constraints; and • was deliverable within the overall programme funding envelope.
This was translated into a four stage process to identify the preferred control option for each school. Broadly, the stages adopted were:
1. Programme wide review of proposals; 2. Identification of options for each school to deliver the education vision; 3. Selection of preferred control options; 4. Confirmation of preferred control options.
The approach adopted takes into account the education drivers at the programme level and for each school site. Alongside the options appraisal process, the Authority has worked with schools in developing their own Strategies for Change, and schools have undertaken extensive consultation with teachers and the Senior Management Teams. These have been used as the key drivers in shaping the options for each school site. Derby’s approach has prioritised the involvement of schools in the development of the options alongside the work of the CYP Department’s Learning Division. Schools have been active partners in the process, agreeing the approach to be taken in the Secondary Heads Group, and through numerous school level meetings.
The options appraisal methodology has been shaped by and conducted within the parameters of the Design Process Protocol. The common process and required
- 12 - deliverables set out in the protocol which was used to structure options appraisal process adopted.
The BSF Project Team identified school leads for each school in the programme. These staff have supported the schools BSF leads and the technical advisors to ensure that proposals developed accurately reflected schools’ education visions, and the requirements of the programme. Throughout the process, we have been conscious to manage school expectations of the programme, and this has ensured that the production of a deliverable option of works for each school.
The options appraisal process has been ongoing since Derby City Council entered the BSF programme in October 2007. Although the phases are largely sequential, it has been an iterative process that has been principally conducted on two levels - programme and school.
3.3 PROGRAMME WIDE REVIEW OF PROPOSALS
Work to confirm the sufficiency of schools through our pupil place planning function commenced early in 2007, prior to our formal entrance into the BSF programme. At the city level, an initial review of the structure and location of provision was conducted, based on pupil number projections, to ensure a close match between supply of, and demand for, places. Although pupil place planning has continued throughout the development of our Strategy for Change, our early work allowed us to confirm that the current structure of secondary provision across the city remains in line with requirements and that only minor changes to admission limits were required. The pupil numbers agreed with our PfS Education Director are set out in Appendix 22.
The opportunities to co-locate special school provision on mainstream school sites were also explored at this stage. There are three special schools in the programme:
• St Andrew’s School is currently located adjacent to da Vinci Community College. As there is already good sharing of facilities, there was no proposal to re-locate this provision. • An opportunity to co-locate St Martins School on the Noel-Baker Community School site, a mainstream school in the programme, was identified. • St Clare’s School will remain on its existing site due to site limitations at nearby mainstream schools.
A review of available sites at the city level was also conducted at this time to see if there were opportunities for re-locating one mainstream school to be more central to the community and the catchment area it serves. As there were no suitable sites within the catchment area that would become available within the timeframe of the programme, the school will remain on its current site. The current St Martins site, which will be vacated once the school co-locates with Noel-Baker, will be used for PRU (Kingsmead Special School) provision.
Within this context, the Council’s Readiness to Deliver submission, which identified the likely level of new build required at each site, was reviewed using up-to-date Asset Management Plan information. The Council’s technical advisors reviewed the
- 13 - condition and suitability surveys for each school. A full summary of this work and the Asset Management Plan data was included in the SfC2 submission.
Alongside this work, the school and Authority wide education visions were drawn together. The Authority’s proposals for delivering choice and diversity at the city level were summarised in the SfC1. The emerging proposals were included in the initial high level programme level review of options.
3.4 IDENTIFICATION OF OPTIONS FOR EACH SCHOOL TO DELIVER THE EDUCATION VISION
The options appraisal process for individual schemes was delivered at school level by the BSF Project Team, representatives from the CYP Department’s Learning Division and the programme’s technical advisors, with head teachers and the schools’ internal BSF teams. A series of school level meetings were held to identify the long list of school level estates options.
For all schools, the process of developing the options commenced with the development of their school’s Strategy for Change. This was initiated at the outset of the programme through the National College for School Leadership Programme and supported throughout the process by the BSF Team’s Education Vision Lead.
A series of three school level meetings were held at each school throughout the Strategy for Change Part 2 stage. The descriptions below are generic and describe the process adopted for all schools. Additional meetings were also held in some schools to further refine the emerging options in line with the school’s vision.
School Level Meetings 1 and 2 - These sessions were held with all schools in the programme between January and March 2008. At the initial meeting, the head teachers and their internal BSF Teams shared their emerging visions. This was supported by colleagues from the CYP Department’s Learning Division and the BSF Project Team.
The technical advisors translated the school’s objectives into a series of block level drawings of the school site, which set out various proposals. In some instances, additional options were produced, but typically the main options considered were:
• No works - this was only considered for relatively new build areas and areas with no reported suitability or access issues; • Minor refurbishment of existing property; • Major refurbishment and remodelling of existing property; • Part refurbishment/remodelling and with new build extensions; and • New build.
The parameters for each option were that they must:
• support the departmental educational vision; • support the schools emerging educational vision as set out in their School Strategies for Change; • where possible, remove existing condition issues;
- 14 - • overcome issues such as capacity and the need for temporary accommodation; • deliver buildings that will enable the modern curriculum to be taught in an appropriate learning environment and for the building to operate in an efficient manner; • take into consideration the likely demand for places in the foreseeable future and address issues of future demand; • be feasible within site constraints; and • promote good access and security for the site.
These parameters provided a reference point for the high level options appraisal exercise. The options produced at this stage also took account of existing sports facilities where these were proposed for retention, highways interface and potential planning restrictions to ensure that the proposals were deliverable. For some schools, up to nine options were produced.
At the second session, the technical advisors presented the options to the head teacher and internal school BSF teams. The school then shared the various options within the school communities including parents, pupils, staff and governors and fed back their comments to the technical advisors. The options were then further refined to produce a set of developed proposals for work at each school site.
3.5 SELECTION OF PREFERRED OPTIONS
To identify the preferred or control option for each school, we set a four stage appraisal process to score the various high level options for each school. The structure of this is set out below:
Level 1 appraisal - programme level parameters. Level 2 appraisal - school level. Level 3 appraisal - programme level strategic vision. Level 4 appraisal - programme level affordability.
The options were scored at each level against set criteria which are detailed below using the following scoring method:
0 Fails to meet the criteria 1 Partially (25%) meets the criteria 2 Partially (75%) meets the criteria 3 Fully meets the criteria
At each stage, only options that partially or fully met the criteria were taken forward to the next level of appraisal.
The Level 1 appraisal - programme level parameters was a high level appraisal of the long list of options produced by our technical advisors to take forward to school level appraisal. This was carried out at programme level by the programme’s Design Team. It identified a shortlist of options which provided the best fit for delivery of the high level
- 15 - parameters detailed in Section 3.4. The appraisal criteria for the Level 1 appraisal were:
Appraisal criteria Criteria description
Condition Does the proposed option remove existing condition issues?
Will the proposed option overcome issues such as capacity or Sufficiency the need for temporary accommodation?
Will the proposed option deliver buildings that enable the modern curriculum to be taught in an appropriate learning Suitability environment and for the building to operate in an efficient manner?
Do the proposals take into consideration the likely demand for places in the foreseeable future? Will there be sufficient Demand demand to maintain minimum pupil numbers such that the school is economically and educationally viable? Do the proposals address issues of future increases in demand?
Is the proposal feasible given the site constraints, for example, Site Constraints likelihood of planning approval, position relative to neighbouring buildings, buildability, phasing?
Does the proposal promote good access and security for site Access and users, e.g. position of buildings on site, position of key site Security entrances?
The shortlist of options considered for sample schools is set out in Appendix 1 Annex 1 and in Appendix 1 Annex 3 for non sample schools.
School Level Meeting 3 - The Level 2 appraisal took place at school level during April 2008. This was a more detailed analysis of the options with the aim of identifying options which were favourable to the school in meeting their education transformation priorities. The scoring at this level was carried out by school representatives from each school including, as a minimum, head teachers and the internal school BSF teams.
The criteria used to score the options at this stage are set out below. The criteria were weighted to ensure that the schools educational vision and the quality of the learning environment were prioritised. After scoring, the weightings were then applied to the scores and a total score for each option was calculated and agreed at the meeting. The options were then ranked in order of preference with the highest scoring option becoming the school’s preferred scheme.
- 16 - Appraisal Criteria Group Criteria Description Weighting
Meets School Education Does the proposal promote 3 Education Vision specialisms, partnership, collaboration and federative approaches? Does it promote improvements in standards in secondary education?
Learning Education Does the option provide a viable, 2 Environment (1) stable and sustainable learning environment for all pupils?
Learning Education Does the proposal promote efficient 2 Environment (2) running of the school and grouping of teaching spaces e.g. distance and relationship between retained and new buildings and their respective uses, extent to which internal spaces promote good behaviour? Does it create a learning environment for the 21st Century?
Community Education Does the option promote and 1 Learning/Use facilitate community learning e.g. fit with shared site and after school users? Does it promote extended and/or co-located provision?
Disruption Education Does the option require phased 1 work and temporary accommodation and/or the temporary loss of playing fields? Does it minimise whole life disruption to education provision?
Future Proofing/ Education Does the option allow opportunities 1 Flexibility of for expansion on site and change Building of use of internal spaces?
Stakeholder Are school stakeholders, including 1 Support governors, teachers and parents, likely to endorse the proposal?
The results were then taken forward to the Level 3 appraisal.
The Level 3 appraisal - programme level strategic vision - was more detailed to identify options which meet the strategic objectives for Derby’s BSF programme. The criteria were weighted to ensure that the programme’s educational vision was
- 17 - prioritised. After scoring, the weightings were then applied to produce a total score for each option. The options with the highest scores were identified as the ‘preferred option’ for each school to be taken forward to the final level of appraisal.
Level 4 was the final analysis of the options to identify the likely scope of works at each school site. The aim of this appraisal was to identify an option for each school site that was affordable within the overall programme funding envelope. The criterion used is set out below:
Appraisal Criteria Group Criteria Description
Affordability Building Is the option deliverable within the overall programme funding envelope?
The options identified and the scores allocated were included in for the SfC2 submission as the likely scope of works for each school. All of the preferred options selected by each school were affordable within the overall capital budget for the programme. As a result, no further work to reduce the cost of any of the preferred options has been necessary during the production of the OBC.
The preferred option of works identifies three new build schemes in the programme which will be procured under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract. Work to identify the early affordability implications of three PFI schemes was carried out prior to the submission of our Strategy for Change Part 2. Council Cabinet approved that the affordability gap would be met from the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) as agreed, in principle, by Schools Forum on 25 March 2008. We were then able to confirm that the preferred option of works at each school was affordable.
The preferred options for sample schools are set out in Appendix 1 Annex 1 and in Appendix 1 Annex 3 for non sample schools.
3.6 CONFIRMATION OF PREFERRED OPTION
3.6.1 Confirmation of control options set out in SfC2
The preferred options set out in our SfC2 submission provided the starting point of further investigations during the development of our OBC. More detailed feasibility studies of the options has been carried out to identify whether the proposals were achievable and affordable at site and programme level. This more detailed feasibility study has identified that changes are required to some proposals to ensure deliverability. Alongside this work, schools supported by colleagues from the Children and Young People’s Learning Division and the project’s technical advisors have continued to refine their education visions and produce adjacencies and accommodation schedules. This has led to a further refinement of the options during the production of our OBC.
The changes required to the proposals set out in our SfC2 are summarised in Section 2.3 and are detailed in Appendix 1 Annex 1 for sample schools and in Appendix 1 Annex 3 for non sample schools. Iterative assessments of the affordability of the
- 18 - proposals throughout the development of OBC mean that we are able to validate a programme of works within this OBC submission that balances deliverability with the requirements of the programme, and schools education strategies.
3.6.2 Refining the design of the preferred option
Individual sessions were held with each sample school and the phase 1b school and collectively with the phase 2 and 3 schools early on in the OBC stage. As well as providing an overview of the next stage of the process, these meetings were used as an opportunity to identify the emerging themes in design. These sessions were supported by our technical advisors and, for the non-sample schools, our CABE Enabler, John Mitchell.
The sessions were attended by head teachers and representatives from their internal BSF teams. The session was used by our technical advisors to start the development of school accommodation schedules and adjacencies to encourage schools to refine their design aspirations.
Key themes that had emerged during the SfC2 options appraisal process were shared with all schools and refined. Other design priorities identified at the session are set out below grouped under four key themes:
Learning Organisation and Settings • Flexible and adaptable learning spaces • Designs to reflect the school’s specialisms • Dispersal of pupils around school to reduce overcrowding in circulation areas • Sufficient space for holding increasing numbers of exams • Good vocational learning spaces
Social Organisation • Design to incorporate departmental and house based structures • Design to create a ‘heart’ space at the centre of the school community • Design to incorporate social spaces • Design to ensure security for school population including opportunities for passive supervision, withdrawal and counselling spaces for students • Maximise the opportunities for external learning through the provision of good social and outdoor spaces.
Impact/Design • Improved external appearance of refurbished buildings to place schools at the heart of their communities • Design to reflect different cultures • Good use of existing trees and landscaping • Good quality teaching and learning environments, including good heat control • Facilities that meet the needs of pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) • Plans for post-BSF maintenance at all schools • Attention to detail • Stimulating and light environments
- 19 -
ICT • Needs to be embedded within the designs • Need to explore a variety of solutions • Creation of an ICT base that will act as interface with the community • Provision of flexible ICT for the future
Other programme wide design priorities identified during the SfC2 visioning process include: • Creation of an inclusive community for the school and its surroundings • Enabling transformation of education through good design • Flexibility and adaptability • Promotion of healthy lifestyles • Every Child Matters • Use of sustainable design / materials /promote energy efficiency • Creation of a learning landscape • Integration of facilities management with design
These themes were carried forward and used as a stimulus for individual school level meetings to support the on-going development of their School Strategies for Change, to refine the design of their preferred options and to influence the proposals for the ICT output specification.
3.6.3 Design Quality Indicators
All head teachers and school BSF leads were introduced to the concept and use of Design Quality Indicators for Schools (DQIfS) at the NCSL BSF Conference. The DQIfS framework has been used as a basis for visits to other new build schools around the country, with schools encouraged to consider the three key areas of functionality, build quality and impact as they walked around other new build schools. This was done with the support of our CABE Enabler.
Our Client Design Adviser, Jim Sterling, is identified as our DQI Lead. The Authority is commissioning a DQI facilitator to work with the sample schools to apply the DQIfS tool during the development of their output specifications. We have set dates for the facilitator to meet with the schools and create a value profile for their school buildings using the FAVE (features that are Fundamental, Add Value and contribute to Excellence in a design) briefing tool. These dates are:
Derby Moor - Wednesday 12 November 2008 Noel-Baker/St Martins – Thursday 6 November 2008
The outputs of this work, the DQI FAVE Reports, will be appended to the output specifications alongside the school’s proposed accommodation schedules and adjacencies diagrams produced during OBC. This information, alongside the Schools Strategies for Change will allow potential bidders to familiarise themselves with the school’s requirements and aspirations to facilitate higher quality designs.
- 20 - We are arranging school level bidder sessions with each sample school in January 2009 shortly after the OJEU notice is published, to allow prospective bidders the opportunity to visit the schools and meet the Design Team, ICT advisers and the head teachers and internal BSF teams. This is to allow the designers sufficient time in the early stages of bidding to develop a thorough response.
3.6.4 Refining the preferred option
At the individual school level, the process of confirming and refining the options continued through a series of school level meetings between head teachers, schools’ internal BSF Team, representatives from the Learning Division, the programme’s technical advisors and the BSF Project Team. These meetings were also attended by the programme’s ICT advisors to identify the requirements for ICT infrastructure and output specifications.
A series of three further school level meetings have been held with each school throughout the development of the OBC. Additional meetings have also been held with the sample schools and the Phase 1b school.
School Level Meetings 4 and 5 - These sessions were held with all schools in the programme between May and July 2008. The technical advisors produced accommodation schedules based on BB98 and supported schools to carry out adjacency analysis and how this might impact on their accommodation schedules. These are set out for each school in Appendix 1 Annex 4.
Once the design process was complete the technical advisors produced the final plans for the preferred option taking into account of the various site investigations, surveys, planning and conservation issues. Further details of these considerations are set out below:
• Site topography and constraints
Topographical surveys have been completed for all schools in the programme. This information has been used to determine building location and calculation of costs associated with levels adjustment and retaining structures.
• Abnormal considerations
Full site investigations have been completed for all schools in the programme, the extent of which was dependent on the nature of work proposed and extent of new build provision. A list of the investigations carried out can be found in the Notice of Declaration in Appendix 16.
The information has been used to calculate the cost of additional foundation requirements, site clearance issues and contamination.
• Asbestos
The Authority already maintains comprehensive type 2 survey data for all its schools. An asbestos consultant has been appointed to review and update the
- 21 - existing type 2 surveys for all schools in the programme and these will be warranted and available to the bidders.
The asbestos consultant has also been appointed to obtain estimates for the asbestos removal based on the type 2 surveys and local knowledge of both school and building type for all schools in the programme. The resultant estimates are significant and have been included in the abnormals cost calculations and will be available to the bidders.
The asbestos consultant and the companies providing estimates for the removal works have been selected from the Derby City Council list of framework contractors.
It should be noted that the estimates are indicative only and the final cost will only be determined following an intrusive type 3 survey which will be planned and managed by the LEP. These estimates due to their nature are included in the excess abnormals proforma at Appendix 1 Annex 2 as provisional sums.
• Demolition
Areas for demolition have been identified as part of the preferred control option.
Due to the nature of the work and the variation and condition of building form, estimating demolition costs is difficult. For the purposes of the financial appraisal estimates for the costs of demolition have been provided by the technical advisors and included in the abnormals cost calculations.
• Site Clearance and Contamination
Site and desk top investigations have provided no evidence of historical uses or incidents that would suggest any significant contamination risk on any of the school sites in the programme.
• Additional foundation requirements
Geotechnical investigations along with topographical and utility surveys have been undertaken to the site areas identified for improvement or new build on each of the school sites in the programme. All of these surveys will be warranted and available to the bidders as set out in the Notice of Declaration in Appendix 16.
These surveys have been reviewed in respect of the impact of these findings on the costs of building. Appropriate allowances have been provided by the technical advisors for each of the school sites and included in the abnormals cost calculations.
• Phasing and temporary accommodation requirements
A review of the work proposed at all schools in the programme has been undertaken to consider disruption to pupils and timetabling, buildability of the
- 22 - proposals and phasing of the works. Key considerations have been the functionality of the school and disruption to students and staff. Consideration has also been made of the use of existing and new build facilities to reduce the amount of disruption and minimise the requirement for decant Schools have also contributed to this process. This has allowed us to identify the likely requirement for decant accommodation.
Three schools have been identified where this may be required and an assessment of this requirement determined from a combination of space taken out of the school to enable the building works to proceed and surplus accommodation within the remaining school derived from re-timetabling. There will be a balance between the amount of disruption and required decant accommodation but this will not be determined until dialogue with bidders commences.
For the purposes of the financial appraisal estimates for the costs of providing decant accommodation have been provided by the technical advisors and included in the abnormals cost calculations.
• Protection during construction
The cost of protecting the school from the building operations will form part of the normal costings for construction works.
Where partial demolition is required and the remaining building is required to continue teaching and learning, additional protection has been allowed to mitigate the effects of noise, weather and air pollution.
In these instances where part demolition may be the solution, additional funding has been included in the abnormals costs calculations. These costs are provided by the technical advisor and are appropriate to the potential requirement. The cost allowance included will provide temporary protection that will be watertight and insulated and will consider security and acoustic requirements.
• Archaeological information
A desk top review of historical data has been undertaken as part of the planning consultations and the site Investigations on all schools in the programme.
Only one school site in the programme, Bemrose, which has been identified as requiring further investigation. The study has identified the possibility of the remains of a Roman road which will require further investigation. The location of the Roman road however should not, with appropriate project planning, affect the building construction phase. An allowance for further work to mitigate the risk has been included in the abnormals costs calculations.
• Acoustic surveys
Acoustic surveys have been undertaken on all schools in the programme.
- 23 -
The information has been used to inform the design and make financial provision for additional acoustic measures.
• Planning and conservation issues
Extensive engagement with the Council’s Development Control Department has been undertaken to ensure the deliverability of the proposals. Where necessary, the proposals have been refined. The results of this consultation are detailed in Section 7.3.
Following discussions with officers in the Development Control and Conservation teams, it became clear that it would be very difficult to obtain planning permission for the proposed demolition and replacement of the main building at Bemrose School. This building has recently been nominated for the City Council’s Local List and is situated in a prominent position on one of the main roads into the city. As a result, the preferred option for Bemrose has been amended to incorporate the retention and refurbishment of the central part of the main block thus mitigating any potential problems later.
Acting on these consultations, outline planning permission has been obtained for Derby Moor, Noel-Baker/St Martins and Lees Brook schemes. Letters of comfort have been sought for the remaining schools in the programme. The results of all the planning consultation will be available for the bidders.
With regards to conservation issues, various ecological studies have been undertaken as part of this process. Due to the length of the programme before construction works will commence on any one of the school sites, appropriate plans have been put in place to mitigate these risks.
• Tree preservation orders
A review of Tree Preservation Order’s (TPO) has been undertaken as part of the planning output on all schools in the programme. The location of TPOs or where they are likely to be applied has been taken into consideration. As it is a fundamental policy decision of the Derby City team that wherever possible the felling of any trees will be prevented, where necessary, the proposals have been refined. The preferred option at Chellaston School has been amended following a review of the TPOs on the site. The proposed location of the new block has been changed to avoid the need to remove any protected trees.
Details are included in the planning consultation evidence which will be available to the bidders.
• Security during construction
An early assessment would suggest that it will not be necessary for the constructors to provide additional security measures during the construction phase beyond that which would normally be provided.
- 24 -
• Sport facilities
For each school in the programme a comparative exercise has been undertaken of current and recommended sports playing fields and sport facilities generally. This information has been used to identify the scope of works at each site.
Additional PfS funding for multi use games areas and all weather pitches is only allowable where an increase in pupil numbers result in a shortfall of playing field provision.
The preferred option for each school in the programme has reviewed the sports facilities requirements and confirms that sufficient space is available on each of the sites. No allowance for additional funding has subsequently been included.
Consultation with Sport England has been undertaken prior to the submission of planning consents. This identified no major issues for any of the schools.
• Mains utilities and service connection
Searches for all mains utilities on and in the vicinity of the site have been undertaken for all the schools in the programme.
Major diversions of services have been avoided wherever possible. Where diversions are required then a financial allowance has been included.
• Highways works
Consultation with the Council’s Highways Department has been undertaken as part of the planning consultations for all the schools in the programme.
Where improvements to access have been identified, a financial allowance has been included which will be funded by a Corporate allocation of £1.5 million secured for this purpose.
School Level Meeting 6 - These sessions have been held with all schools during September 2008 to sign off the preferred option and discuss the phasing schedules for each scheme. Using the outputs from the previous meetings, the technical advisors finalised the preferred option producing remodelled floor plans showing potential zoning layouts within the buildings based on the schools adjacencies analysis. These include proposals for horizontal and vertical circulation. Updated site plans, preferred options, adjacency diagrams, phasing diagrams and massing studies have been produced for all schools as agreed with our PfS Design Manager and are shown in Appendix 1 Annex 1 for sample schools and Appendix 1 Annex 3 for non-sample schools. Accommodation schedules based on BB98/BB77 have also been produced and are included in Appendix 1 Annex 4.
- 25 -
3.6.5 Output specifications
Further meetings are being held with the sample schools to draw together the output specifications for their schemes. A copy of our draft output specification is attached at Appendix 2 Annex 3. These will contain the adjacencies analysis and both BB98 and school specific accommodation schedules based on proposed use of area.
3.7 SUMMARY OF THE PREFERRED OPTIONS
Details of the preferred option for each school are given below showing the strategic brief for the schools and a summary of the costs as prepared by our technical advisers. Further information on the financial assessments is covered in Section 3.8:
Derby Moor Community Sports College - sample scheme 59% new build; 8% major refurbishment; 27% minor refurbishment; 6% no works
Summary of the proposed works Capital costs at Jan 08 prices OBC estimated capital costs £19,000,000 Estimated Excess abnormals £1,100,000 TOTAL £20,100,000
The school’s vision is to achieve transformation by developing a range of teaching and social spaces in buildings that meet the aspirations of staff, pupils and parents. A high level of clarity to the site planning and organisation is vital so that all school users feel welcome and can easily find their way around the school. The school wishes to adopt the model of a central social and entry hub with five learning zones radiating from it. The central hub and two of the learning zones will be accommodated in a new build at the centre of the school, while the other three learning zones will be created through remodelling of parts of the current Derwent and Stenson buildings and the whole Cromford building, along with some further new build. The arrangement of the newly refurbished school will accommodate ‘vertical’ tutor groups and be suitable for half and whole day teaching groups.
Noel-Baker Community School and Language College and St Martins School - sample scheme 96% new build; 4% no works
Summary of the proposed works Capital costs at Jan 08 prices OBC estimated capital costs £37,200,000 Excess abnormals £300,000 TOTAL £37,500,000
Noel-Baker and St Martins will be almost completely rebuilt on Noel-Baker’s current site, with only the sports hall retained. This proposal addresses the current split-site issue at Noel-Baker and will enable the schools’ visions for shared facilities to be met. Noel-Baker’s vision is for a ‘house’ type structure and this form of suiting will be reflected in the new build design. Flexible and independent learning will be encouraged through the formation of four curriculum learning zones. St Martins is a
- 26 - special school for pupils with moderate learning difficulties (MLD), Behavioural, Emotional and Social Disorders (BESD) and Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The school would like an outward looking building which forms a hub for integrated education provision. The form of the building will encourage an outward looking approach and there will be provision for socialisation as well as privacy. The school wishes to become part of a larger community, so some facilities will be shared with Noel-Baker, including catering and administration. As there are a number of pupils at each school who would benefit from the facilities offered by the other school, learning support will also be shared.
Lees Brook Community Sports College - phase 1b 85% new build; 15% no works
Summary of the proposed works Capital costs at Jan 08 prices OBC estimated capital costs £20,700,000 Excess abnormals £1,100,000 TOTAL £21,800,000
Lees Brook College is determined to build further upon the transforming achievements of recent years and future ambitions are reflected in an innovative and aspirational vision for the new buildings. Separate blocks will be linked by covered pathways to allow students the benefits of fresh air as they move to and from lessons.
The new school will provide large areas for team teaching and lead lectures, and smaller areas for independent learning and small group work. The new design will place appropriate subject areas (such as Science and Design Technology) alongside one another to enable good use of shared facilities and promote a collaborative approach to improving the quality of teaching and learning. Space will be used to maximum effect with appropriate multipurpose areas that can be used for private study, staff workrooms, meeting rooms for cross-curricular and subject teams and a training/conference room.
A combined college library and ICT centre will be developed to allow true multi-media learning. It will be located in a dominant position at the front of the new buildings to emphasise its role as the hub of the learning environment and to provide maximum impact through its design features.
The college intends to transform the existing Learning Centre, placing it at the heart of the new college as a place where all students can receive short or longer term help to address any problems they encounter with their learning. The Learning Centre will form part of a wider Learning Support area where specialist staff will work with students to address whatever issue is presented.
Bemrose School - phase 2 65% new build; 18% major refurbishment; 15% minor refurbishment; 2% no works
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £22,200,000
- 27 - The school’s vision is to develop a ‘house’ model with cross-curricular, flexible teaching spaces and suited ICT. There will be four clearly defined teaching zones and a central space for shared facilities. The school wishes to encourage community involvement and so the refurbished school will be welcoming and accessible. The re- instatement of the central pedestrian entrance free of vehicles will assist with this. The core of the current main block will be retained and refurbished to create a central community and social space and specialist teaching accommodation. Two new buildings behind will provide the four house bases with accommodation for general teaching and ICT. The current dining block will be retained and existing sports hall will also be retained and refurbished, but the school’s changing provision will be demolished and replaced.
Littleover Community School - phase 2 52% new build; 6% major refurbishment; 8% minor refurbishment; 34% no works
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £20,000,000
Littleover is the highest performing school in Derby’s BSF programme and consistently achieves results well above the national average. The school wishes to maintain and improve its current outstanding provision and provide facilities that will promote outstanding teaching and learning. The current hall and entrance will be retained and refurbished, with two new blocks on either side and a link across the back of the hall to provide better circulation and a dining and social space for students. The current science and humanities blocks will also be refurbished, and the sports facilities and technology block will be retained. This will reflect a human scale and the school’s family atmosphere, with several smaller blocks rather than a single, monolithic structure. Subject areas will be suited and there will be dedicated social and study areas for sixth form students. Indoor social areas will also be developed for other year groups.
Saint Benedict Catholic School and Performing Arts College - phase 2 28% new build; 24% major refurbishment; 14% minor refurbishment; 34% no works
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £15,200,000
The preferred option for the school will help to bring together all school buildings into a cohesive whole that will aid communication and circulation. The scheme will accommodate the school’s vision to provide spaces that enable flexible teaching and personalised learning. It will also provide improvements to the school’s sports facilities and allow for better suiting of accommodation. As the school’s high quality performing arts facilities are based on the school’s north site, but the majority of the school’s accommodation is on the south site, the current split site will be retained, with performing arts and vocational subjects will based on the north site and other accommodation consolidated onto the south site. Temporary accommodation will be replaced with new build and the current sports hall will be extended. A new ‘heart’ block on the south site will link together existing buildings, meeting the school’s vision of creating a central hub for the school community. It will also bring together facilities
- 28 - for emotional and spiritual development and pastoral support at the centre of the school.
St Clare’s School - phase 2 100% new build
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £8,100,000
The new building at St Clare’s, which is a special school for pupils with moderate learning difficulties, will provide much improved facilities for all teaching and learning, including vocational subjects. The school wishes to develop multi-disciplinary working and extended schools use. The school is keen to develop its horticulture provision and to develop further vocational provision for its students. The new school building will be significantly larger than the current building, which is significantly smaller than BB77 guidance, and will provide a range of flexible work spaces, specialist teaching accommodation and meeting areas for both students and staff. The form and location of the new building will make the best use of the site, so that the space available for both hard and soft external play facilities and horticulture can be maximised and noise from the adjacent A-road minimised.
Chellaston School - phase 3 11% new build; 2% major refurbishment; 8% minor refurbishment; 79% no works
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £5,200,000
The school’s vision is to develop its facilities to promote community use, independent learning and partnerships with local employers. New accommodation is needed to provide for increased pupil numbers, so a new block is proposed for the front of the site. This will allow maximum exposure to the community and will be a statement of intent for the future. Some accommodation currently housed in existing buildings will move into the new building and these vacated areas will be remodelled for vocational studies including construction, hair and beauty, horticulture and food. As well as the new block at the front of the site, the school’s main building will be refurbished. This will enable the school to fulfil its vision for a greater emphasis on lifelong learning, vocational studies and those students who may not wish to continue in education at present.
Murray Park Community School - phase 3 19% new build; 50% major refurbishment; 31% minor refurbishment
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £8,500,000
The school’s vision is to develop a number of areas, including inclusion, indoor and outdoor sports provision, technology and science. The new facilities and buildings will allow better suiting of technology and science into one area, and will also enable further development of the school’s vocational facilities. The main block at the school will be retained and refurbished, along with three smaller blocks to the east of the site. The rear part of the school, which currently houses Art and Technology will be demolished and the two temporary blocks will be removed. These will be replaced
- 29 - with a new block linking into the current accommodation, which will provide new Sports, Technology and Science provision. The small kitchen and dining area will be remodelled and extended to provide suitable dining and social facilities for the whole school.
West Park School - phase 3 13% new build; 10% major refurbishment; 4% minor refurbishment; 73% no works
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £5,300,000
The school’s vision is to provide 21st century facilities for Maths and ICT and encourage community links, learning and inclusion. The school wishes to provide new facilities to promote vocational studies, including construction and hair and beauty. A new Maths and ICT block is proposed for the front of the site. This will replace the current temporary Maths block and will enable the existing ICT rooms to be converted into a nurture facility, which will promote inclusion and enable the school to meet its vision of providing individualised learning programmes to vulnerable pupils within a flexible space. The existing sports hall will be converted to provide vocational facilities and a new school hall. The new block will act as a focal point at the front of the school and will promote community and extended use.
Woodlands School - phase 3 25% new build; 2% major refurbishment; 57% minor refurbishment; 16% no works
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £8,200,000
The school’s vision is to provide an inspirational environment for teaching and learning, as well as sufficient recreational and meeting space for pupils and staff. The school would like to create a showcase for technology and improved accommodation for creative arts. The new building at the front of the site will provide new technology teaching areas. The current technology block will be refurbished to provide accommodation for a different curriculum area. The main block will also be refurbished and the current gymnasium area will be remodelled to provide better accommodation for dance and drama. Improved accommodation for art and music will also be incorporated into the refurbished areas. A new changing block at the rear of the site will be used by students and the wider community using the school’s outdoor sports facilities. The sports hall, swimming pool and sixth form blocks will be retained.
St Andrew’s School - phase 3 28% new build; 13% major refurbishment; 59% no works
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £3,500,000
St Andrew’s is a special school for pupils with severe learning difficulties and autism. The school’s vision is to improve its teaching and learning facilities by providing suitable classrooms for all classes, better specialist teaching spaces and new work areas for staff. It also wishes to provide further opportunities for pupils to develop independent living skills. The floor area of the school is currently under BB77
- 30 - guidance, so the proposal seeks to address this by providing significant new build accommodation. From September 2008, St Andrew’s will have dedicated teaching space at da Vinci Community College, an adjacent mainstream secondary school,. This accommodation will be maintained after BSF and the school wishes to continue to develop its partnership with da Vinci and with other schools. A new sports hall and changing rooms will be built at St Andrew’s, which will provide the school with dedicated sports facilities and allow better use of the current school hall for music, drama and dining. Existing classrooms at the school that are too small will be remodelled or converted to provide larger teaching spaces and work areas for staff. An extension will be added to the rear of the school to provide two further classrooms and specialist spaces for art and science. The current library will be extended to provide a learning resource centre with ICT provision and the sixth form area at the school will be enlarged to provide social facilities for older students.
Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) - phases 2 and 3 100% new build
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £7,800,000
The vision for the Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) is to create purpose- built, flexible spaces that meet the needs of different groups of pupils, including post- 16 and those with BESD. This includes increased provision for vocational and practical courses, and spaces for group and individual learning. Accommodation for Key Stages 4 and 5 will be provided at two stand alone units, replacing a number of inadequate facilities. The first will be a new build on a former special school site, which will provide facilities for motor vehicle and construction courses, as well as core skills. The second will be a refurbishment and significant extension to the current Southgate facility, which will provide accommodation for core skills and pupils with BESD, as well as facilities for performing arts, horticulture and hair and beauty. This site will also house a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for pupils who are unable to attend a PRU (Kingsmead Special School) base for medical or other reasons. Key Stage 3 provision will be created in specialist units on four school sites around the city. These will provide an inclusive environment and enable pupils to access the host school’s facilities, as well as the specialist services provided for them. They will contribute towards the PRU’s (Kingsmead Special School) vision of inclusion and integrating pupils back into mainstream education.
Sinfin Community School - phase 3 100% new build
OBC estimated capital costs at Jan 08 prices £3,400,000
Sinfin Community School has recently been re-built as a BSF Pathfinder following a school fire. The school currently provides 11-16
SfC2 set out our proposal to include the school in the ICT managed service. The school will now be to drawn into the capital programme with the construction of a sixth form centre to provide post-16 provision.
- 31 - Sinfin Community School, recently re-built as a BSF Pathfinder, after a school fire, will now be drawn into the capital programme with the construction of a sixth form centre. The school currently provides 11-16 accommodation only, but in line with the proposal to open the school as an academy, there is an expectation that it will provide post-16 provision. DCSF and PfS have agreed to fund new sixth form provision through the BSF programme and feasibility work commenced to look at how the new build can be accommodated on the site. The preferred option is for a new build adjacent to its vocational centre. The building will provide a 200 place sixth form centre in line with education vision set out in the Expression of Interest for Academy Status which was approved in September 2008.
3.8 FINANCIAL ASSESSMENTS OF THE PREFERRED OPTION
Once the preferred options had been signed off by schools, the costs including abnormals were finalised. Further information on the costs can be found in Section 6.
3.8.1 OBC costs basis
The estimated costs for the capital schemes have been developed in conjunction with the external technical advisers and the Council’s Property Services team. The recent completion of a BSF Pathfinder scheme, Sinfin Community School, has provided a benchmark for current construction costs. The external advisers have also been able to provide costing information based on their experience of earlier wave BSF authorities.
3.8.2 Abnormal costs and external works
Full details of the process for determining abnormal costs and external works are contained within section 3.6. The abnormal costs for the proposed PFI schools have been included as part of the modelling for the unitary charge on these schemes. Details of the abnormal costs and external works for all the schools are contained within Appendix 1 Annex 2.
3.8.3 Lifecycle costs - PFI schemes
The lifecycle costs for the PFI schemes have been estimated by the external advisers to be 21% of the overall capital cost of the PFI building. This percentage has been based on their experience of earlier wave BSF bid submissions.
3.8.4 Lifecycle costs - Conventionally procured schemes
The lifecycle costs for the conventionally procured schemes have been estimated by the external advisers and are based on having a similar level of investment as the PFI schemes. All the schools that are part of conventionally procured schemes have been asked to agree to a strategy for dealing with lifecycle costs. Details of the proposed strategy and copies of individual school agreements are included at Appendix 9.
3.8.5 Facilities management costs - PFI schemes
- 32 - The facilities management costs for the PFI schemes have been estimated by the external advisers to be £52 per sqm as at June 2008. These costs are also based on their experience of earlier wave BSF bid submissions.
3.9 SAMPLE SCHOOLS
The rationale for the selection of Derby’s sample schemes was outlined in the SfC2 document. The sample schemes have not changed and are confirmed as:
Noel-Baker Community School and St Martins School – new build PFI scheme
Derby Moor Community Sports College – D and B refurbishment scheme
The Noel Baker Community School and St Martin’s School project was selected as the new build sample as it is a challenging scheme from an educational transformation and design perspective, with the desire for shared facilities. It will be beneficial to have a special school as a sample because there will be significant capital work on special schools in subsequent phases of the project.
Derby Moor Community Sports College was selected as the D and B refurbishment sample as it is a large re-modelling scheme with elements of new build, major and minor refurbishment.
All three schools scored highly in Authority’s prioritisation matrix, particularly on educational need. The sample schools were also selected as they address many of the programme wide objectives and so are a good reflection of Derby’s programme. The school vision statements, strategic briefs, feasibility drawings, costing information and abnormal costs proformas for the sample schemes can be found in Appendix 1.
The information for all schools in the wave has been developed to the same level of detail as the sample schools and is also detailed in the options appraisal appendix.
The proposed phasing of Derby’s BSF programme is shown in Appendix 21 which now incorporates the schemes for Sinfin and the PRU (Kingsmead Special School). The proposed sixth form at Sinfin Community School will be built as part of Phase 3. As set out in SfC 2, the Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) will be included in Phases 2 and 3. The new PRU (Kingsmead Special School) base on the former Ivy House site on Bateman Street will be built as part of Phase 2 and the extension and refurbishment of the Southgate Education Centre will be included in Phase 3. The KS3 cluster bases on mainstream secondary school sites will be included as part of the BSF development at those schools.
3.10 SAMPLE SCHOOLS - DELIVERY OF STRATEGY FOR CHANGE
Alongside the options appraisal process, all schools have developed their Strategies for Change in line with the Authority’s Strategy for Change.
The approaches adopted to develop the strategies were based upon schools’ existing consultation and development planning processes. Supported by colleagues from the Learning Division, members of the schools’ senior and middle management, teaching
- 33 - and teacher support staff, and governors were all involved. Students were important contributors, usually via the School Council’s. Assemblies, form periods and other opportunities have been taken to enable an extensive debate amongst students. There has also been extensive parental consultation through parents’ evenings, newsletters, school websites and other media.
The PFI new build sample scheme is the co-located Noel-Baker and St Martins schools which bring together a mainstream 11-18 school and a special school. The schools have drafted individual School Strategies for Change, but have worked to develop a shared vision.
The resulting School Strategies for Change address the agreed Authority priorities set out in Section 2.2 and Section 2.3 and those set out in our Remit for Change.
Derby Moor proposes to add value through BSF by significantly improving standards of attainment. The school emphasises the governors’ intention to expand the school day and year, and maximise opportunity for community use of school facilities.
Like all schools in the programme, the sample schools’ visions aim to ensure that poor performance is eradicated and that standards improve to levels significantly better than the national average.
Each school has identified current areas of under-performance and targeted groups of pupils who are less likely to succeed. SSfCs address the issues of under-performance and identify strategies to tackle them through BSF.
Derby Moor has identified current under-performance by middle-ability girls and students of Indian origin. Weaker subjects are Science, Art, Graphic Products, Resistant Materials, Applied Business, Drama and Music. Underperformance will be addressed through multiple approaches outlined in the SSfC.
Noel-Baker is the lowest attaining of our sample/first phase schools and, in 2008, became a National Challenge School, as it failed to reach the performance threshold for attainment in English and Maths. Other low-performing areas include French, Geography and Music. The school aims to achieve a major transformation in the percentage of students achieving 5+ higher grades, including Maths and English (up from 28% to 50%). Whilst GCSE results in 2008 were above the National Challenge threshold of 30% A*-C, including English and Maths, improving performance remains a priority.
Like all schools in the programme, the sample schools’ visions aim to ensure that poor performance is eradicated and that standards improve to levels significantly better than the national average.
In line with Authority’s Choice and Diversity proposal, each of the three sample schools have all begun the process that may lead them to become Trusts. Noel-Baker and St Martins have begun to consider a Joint Trust arrangement that will focus on maximising the benefits to be gained from the co-location of the two schools. Derby Moor has begun the process of acquiring a Trust that will include as a partner the Ivy House Special School, which is currently being re-built on the Derby Moor site.
- 34 - Enhanced detail on the Authority’s current position on emerging Choice and Diversity is included in Appendix 15.
All three schools’ SfCs support delivery of the Council’s aim to better enable young people to meet their personal targets and aspirations by improving access to an expanded range of curriculum opportunities. The KS3 offer will be radically different both in terms of the curriculum and in the method of its delivery.
Derby Moor’s plans to develop the 14-19 curriculum offer are among the most ambitious in the City. All students will be supported in accessing the curriculum through the support of individual mentors. The Health specialism will be developed through PE and Sport, Food Technology, Science and PSHE, with some contribution from other subjects. Active citizenship will also be emphasised within a positive and participative curriculum.
To achieve this, Derby Moor wants to incorporate “flexible and inspiring learning spaces … to be complemented by an integrated and flexible virtual learning space.”
The Derby Moor scheme is the refurbishment D and B sample scheme so this objective presents particular challenges as flexible learning spaces will need to be provided within current buildings through re-modelling. The options appraisal process has confirmed that the buildings identified for retention are capable of refurbishment to these standards. The proposed new-build areas adjacent to the remodelled blocks will provide a central heart to the school and access to five flexible learning areas.
At Noel-Baker, a learning pathway will enable supported access to a truly personalised experience. BSF will enable improved coherence between subjects and increase opportunities for tailoring the curriculum to meet the needs of individual students. A key focus of the shared learning vision with St Martins is built around increased individual support for students with SEN in both schools.
A cornerstone of the St Martins philosophy is for the school to be increasingly outward-looking and the planned co-location of the new school with Noel-Baker is a clear manifestation of this belief. The co-location will immediately offer a significantly expanded curriculum to pupils, as St Martins will have easy access to the full offer of a large mainstream comprehensive and will support delivery of personalised curricula for their students.
The design of the building will be driven by the desire of both Noel-Baker and St Martins to share facilities and allow students from one school to access the facilities of the other easily. However, both schools wish to retain their separate identities.
Noel-Baker school wishes to design a new-build based upon four blocks, with specialist rooms on the ground floor and more general learning spaces above. Learning Plazas will support social activities and extended learning and natural light will contribute to a positive environment.
The St Martins vision is for a secure, but welcoming environment, conjoined with Noel- Baker buildings. There will be three small schools within the one school to cater for different needs, with a mixture of specialist and flexible learning accommodation.
- 35 -
ICT plays a pivotal role in revolutionising teaching and learning practices both within the school day and as part of a 24/7 vision for wider community involvement. The ICT vision for both schools reflects the Authority’s aspiration to use 21st century ICT to underpin a dynamic and challenging curriculum within which young people and their families can develop and independent learners.
Derby Moor has a well-developed and coherent vision for the way in which ICT will transform all aspects of the school’s operation and the ways in which the wider community can benefit and ICT plays a central role in its SfC.
The Noel-Baker Strategy for Change states: “We will place the power of ICT increasingly in the hands of our learners so that new technology becomes integral to their learning at school, in and out of the classroom and when they are away from school.”
St Martins will liaise closely with Noel-Baker school on the nature of ICT provision, with an emphasis upon compatibility of hardware. Devices suitable for pupils with SEN will be part of the output specification for ICT.
All sample schools will deliver an enhanced curriculum and support the development of the 14-19 agenda through introducing a range of diplomas. Further information on the 14-19 curriculum options can be found in Appendix 19.
At Derby Moor, the 14-19 curriculum will have a much greater emphasis on vocational courses than previously and the school’s planned contribution to the south west cluster of schools and the Millennium Centre Sixth Form will be in the areas of Sport, Health and Science.
Noel-Baker has been identified to lead Diploma development within the City’s 14-19 Partnership for Society, Health and Development and Languages. A key reason for St Martin’s co-location is to maximise the curriculum offer available to pupils. Key skills development will be crucial. St Martin’s will be able to access the Diploma activities of Noel-Baker and other cluster and city schools in the 14-19 Partnership.
The selection of Noel-Baker/St Martins as the sample scheme emphasises the Authority’s commitment to provide resources and spaces suitable for vulnerable groups including children with SEN. Noel-Baker school has enthusiastically contracted to co-locate with St Martins Special School. This provides a greater opportunity for students of both schools to benefit from better quality provision and access to a wider range of facilities, resources and experiences, whilst retaining the specialist teaching and support. Co-location will allow much increased pupil integration, especially social development, and in sport, music, drama, art and vocational courses.
Derby Moor has ambitious plans to mentor every student. The new school will house a purpose-designed integrated Learning Support Hub. The co-location of Ivy House Special School will give a further dimension to the school’s ability to champion young people with special needs.
- 36 - St Martins has set stretching targets for improved pupil attainment, including quadrupling average points scores for students as a result of BSF.
All secondary schools in Derby are delivering access to a range of extended services which support and motivate children and young people to achieve their full potential. Many are working collaboratively with their partner primaries on transition activities and with other partner organisations. There is a need to sustain and enhance the full core offer of extended provision and schools need the flexible facilities which will enable them to increase community access, parental engagement and a varied menu of activities which offer young people a safe place to be between 8 am and 6 pm. We are aspiring to achieve a high quality programme rather than just a satisfactory one and BSF offers the opportunity for contributing to this goal by improving the infrastructure for teaching and learning, and for the long term provision of extended services in all BSF schools. Extended services remain a key priority in our BSF programme.
At school level, each of the samples has developed extended services as an area of emphasis. Noel-Baker wishes to be a thriving community school in more than name, with ‘external services’ becoming ‘joint services’, with co-location of facilities such as adult education, library, social services and medical care. Improved sports facilities will enhance community use of the school site throughout the school day, during the evenings and at weekends.
Noel-Baker is highly committed to delivering the Every Child Matters outcomes and wishes to develop the ‘extended school’ model with the school becoming a ‘hub’ of integrated services. Through working with other schools, local providers and the local authority Noel-Baker believes it will be possible to increase the adult and family learning offered, offer parenting and family support, a range of activities using the schools facilities and easy access to targeted and specialist services. The school’s learning platform will play a major role in supporting the community.
The school is working in conjunction with St. Martins to develop links with community groups, vocational providers and extended services. St Martins wants to become a centre of support for our students, their families and extend this further to other local families who have children with SEN. A range of services will be available at St Martins to support families across the range of Education, Health, Social Care and the Police. St Martins already offers a range of Extended School options, but would like to increase this and, in particular, offer more family learning and parenting classes specifically tailored to the needs of families.
Through its community focus, family learning, vocational and volunteer programmes, Derby Moor College will develop opportunities for students to be involved with the local and wider communities and will engage them in making a positive contribution (assessment and accreditation for pupils’ achievements in this voluntary work will actively be sought). The college will develop a range of opportunities for adults and community members to participate in formal and informal learning and will have a commitment to the training and continuing professional development of all staff. The curriculum will therefore include opportunities for peer learning, group projects, learning from adults other than teachers and learning outside the classroom through
- 37 - visits, experiences and field trips and engagement with ‘real-time’ remote expeditions and events through communications technology.
A summary of how the three sample schools (Noel-Baker, St Martins and Derby Moor) will deliver the Strategy for Change is set out in Appendix 2 Annex 1 together with their individual School SfCs.
- 38 - SECTION 4: THE ICT PROJECT
4.1 ICT VISION
The Authority's vision is for 21st century ICT to underpin a dynamic and challenging curriculum within which young people and their families can develop as independent learners supported by highly-trained teachers. We want a city where every learner is a confident and skilled ‘e’ citizen. ICT will provide timely individual progress data, enabling weaknesses to be addressed and appropriate support offered. It will permit greater efficiencies in the management, organisation and administration of learning establishments, with more timely and accurate data informing decision making wherever and whenever it is needed.
ICT will be at the heart of our BSF programme and the need to ensure appropriate provision will be highlighted at every stage of our development process. It will provide the flexibility to exploit advancements in technology, but will equally provide controls to ensure that learners are protected from potential new dangers these developments can bring. In our vision for BSF, ICT will energise the transformation of learning in Derby and ensure speedy and effective communication between all our schools and the multi-agency networks within which they work. With this in mind, it has been recognised by all that ICT is a crucial component in the successful implementation of the BSF programme, therefore the vision includes:
• provision to all schools affected by BSF Capital Works • using the additional funding provided by PfS for ICT investment in non-BSF schools to ensure this crucial service is provided to the entire secondary estate. This means that four schools recently re-built will be included in the programme – Merrill College, Kingsmead Special School, da Vinci Community College and Ivy House Special School. Our cost model set out in Appendix 7 Annex 4 reflects this situation. • using £4m of the BSF Capital Works Budget to ensure ICT services are consistent throughout the entire secondary estate. This means that ICT related building works can be completed in buildings not impacted by the refurbishment programme. This situation is reflected in the overall Programme Summary in Appendix 7 Annex 3.
There is considerable emphasis on diversity of learning provision, helping to generate greater flexibility, choice for learning and opportunities for new ways of collaborative learning/remote teaching. A much improved and integrated communications system will be put in place across Derby, primarily through the provision of a single, high quality learning platform, with a streamlined infrastructure enabling more efficient collaboration across clusters, trusts and extended services schools to deliver Every Child Matters outcomes. There will be 24/7 access to learning for learners, teachers, families and the wider community, with communication systems in place for parents/carers to access and contribute to any relevant and appropriate information about their child. The learning platform will be central to the collaborative relationship between schools, and the Authority and its schools, with the optional extension to primary schools.
- 39 - Derby schools have strong and interdependent relationships and are at the heart of their communities. Derby schools have a number of specialisms and already share knowledge and resources with each other. We wish to see ICT playing its part in this process and extending its capabilities.
To ensure schools remain at the forefront of developments, they are keen to pilot emerging technologies to evaluate their potential impact on learning and test against the claims made for them, in partnership with the LEP.
The Authority is determined to procure a flexible and scaleable solution and will challenge bidders to determine how they might generate economies of scale as a consequence. There will also be a requirement for bidders to deliver an optional primary ICT managed service offering.
4.2 ICT CONTEXT (THE CURRENT POSITION)
The Authority currently provides Wide Area Network (WAN) services to each secondary school with a 10mb capacity per school and WAN services to each special school with a minimum capacity of 2mb per school. Internet connectivity is load balanced over 2 sites with 3 pipes and a capacity of 50mb. These services are shared across all education settings and some administrative bases. The Authority also currently provide firewalls, filtering and email for all schools.
Enhancements to both the WAN and internet connectivity are expected and will be provided by the Authority. Target capacity levels are a minimum WAN capacity of 100mb per campus for co-located secondary and special schools or individual secondary school sites, and 10mb for smaller specialist sites. Internet connectivity will also be enhanced to provide a capacity of 100mb. There is a planned starting position of 80mb with increases provided in relation to demand. Due to current contract renegotiations, further clarity will be developed and released before OJEU publication.
Most schools employ technical staff with some engaging additional services from the Authority and / or private sector to provide additional support.
• All Derby secondary schools have arranged their own technical support and have network managers and technical support staff to manage and keep the infrastructure and hardware running and have moved away from this being part of the Head of ICT role • Some also have arrangements with the Authority and / or external ICT companies to provide advice and support as required • Schools have been encouraged to adopt the Becta Framework for Information and Communication Technology Technical Support (FITs) framework to ensure that technical support staff are able to work at the required level • The Authority has a Service Level Agreement with the circuit providers in relation to the maintenance of WAN connectivity to each school. • The Authority has a Service Level Agreement with the internet providers in relation to the maintenance of internet connectivity to each school. • Derby secondary schools are using either Serco Facility, or Capita SIMS as their chosen MIS. The special schools and primary schools are currently using Oracle Phoenix.
- 40 - • Derby schools are using different Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and Managed Learning Environment (MLE) products such as Moodle and Microsoft Learning Gateway. • All Derby school have the ability to access the National Education Network via ja.net connections.
4.3 STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
The ICT Workstream has actively sought stakeholder engagement during the process of developing the requirements and views its accountability to stakeholders as crucial for the credibility of the programme. There have been:
• Twice-monthly meetings of the ICT Stakeholders Group. This group has worked directly to deliver key documents including the ICT Output Specification, and has helped to shape the educational approach to the programme. • Frequent ad-hoc meetings with teachers, staff and governors to discuss and debate the most effective solutions for the BSF ICT programme. • Additional meetings at schools’ request including Secondary Heads, Primary Heads and Special Heads meetings. Also including school strategy development meetings. • Schools have been supported individually by our ICT Consultants who are providing support and challenge to their Strategy for Change plans, and are helping schools on an on-going basis to develop ICT Output Specification School Enhancements which will help them to deliver their aspirational changes.
Schools have been the key drivers of their own ICT Output Specification and understand that these will strongly inform that of the LA, ensuring that there is a coherent approach to the ICT provision. The LA ICT Output Specification was driven by the LAs Strategy for Change Plan agreed by schools. We believe that the development of this collegiate approach to developments will continue during the period running up to the BSF ICT contract. We feel that this is of significant benefit to Derby schools and demonstrates their full commitment to drive transformation in their own establishments.
As suggested above, the scope of the services to be procured has been the subject of a significant amount of consultation with schools, in joint and individual meetings. This process has included the activities described below:
• Visits to individual schools • Specific Educational ICT support to vision development • BSF School Representatives group and Heads meetings • Meetings with BSF Consortia Representatives. • Engagement in more depth with Authorities and Special schools (planned) in previous waves (including Leicester City Council, Nottingham City Council and Derbyshire County Council) • Participation in the NCSL BSF Programme • The formation of an ICT Sub-Group with broad representation from schools, the BSF team, curriculum and administrative staff of the Children, Learning and Young Peoples' Directorate and Corporate ICT staff
- 41 - • Visits to other sites/Authorities, including: • Djanogly Academy (Nottingham), Leigh Technology Academy (Dartford), Chaucer School (Sheffield), Hadley Learning Community (Telford), Darlington Education Village (Darlington), Minister School (Southall), Cisco Beaufont (planned) • Engagement in, and attendance at, PfS training events, regional symposia and exhibitions.
In additional, the development of the affordability models has given schools’ increased understanding of the ICT procurement as they show, on a rolling basis, the feasibility and achievability of the solution.
Soft-market testing has been a significant feature of the engagement process and bidders have been keen to understand the Authority's approach. There has been significant enthusiasm for the Authority position with regard to transformation and partnership, and to the Authority's willingness to present a "biddable" proposition that remains as clear as possible. Engagement has included prospective bidders (both construction and ICT) and tier 1 manufacturers.
Feedback from the market has been very positive and has led the Authority to conclude that there will be significant market interest in the proposition.
The ICT solution has gained significant stakeholder buy in throughout the Derby BSF programme. This has been achieved through the work of Stakeholder groups, ICT Steering Group and by school visits establishing school ownership of their own Strategy for Change and consequent realisation of ICT Output Specification in line with their vision.
4.4 ICT TRANSFORMATION
As previously discussed, Derby’s vision is to transform teaching and learning through the use of innovative and integrated ICT. In order to achieve this, ICT services will be delivered through a managed service sub-contracted to the LEP. It will be the LEP’s responsibility to ensure the provision of ICT is integrated into the other elements of the BSF programme such as design, building management systems etc.
We will challenge the LEP to deliver service to schools in an efficient and effective manner, making best use of on-site resources.
4.4.1 Personalised Learning
Effective ICT provision through BSF will support the analysis of data to identify student needs, provide stimulating learning environments (including a Virtual Learning Environment) and facilitate individual research and study in and out of the school environment
There will be outstanding teaching and learning, particularly through enhanced opportunities for personalised and independent learning, which technologies will enable.
- 42 - Derby City Council is particularly keen to explore potential use of data by schools, which will become increasingly available from the multi-agency services. This will provide contextual data about the “whole child”. It will allow schools to more closely personalise provision and identify earlier the need for intervention strategies and extended support, which sometimes might be short term and temporary, but could currently be difficult to identify. Derby City Council also recognises that there are sometimes circumstances outside school that can impact on a child’s capacity to learn, improved integration of data from multi-agency services will enable greater understanding of these circumstances.
4.4.2 14-19 Approach - Data Requirements
Students are currently offered a wide compendium of options via an area-wide on-line prospectus which was steered by Connexions. Where the ICT specifications have allowed, this has been added to their existing provision.
The Derby 14–19 Partnership are currently addressing the challenges of new responsibilities and curriculum change, including the tracking of learners, and analysing their progress, offsite registration applications and the challenges of raising the participation age and implementation of a National 14-19 Entitlement offer. The Authority is committed to developing an approach to ICT, within the broader agenda, that builds on the initiatives described above and places data, data integration and interoperability at the heart of the programme.
We need to have integrated curriculum and administration systems, to cover services such as cashless catering, student registration, libraries, and security in learning establishments so that there is seamless transfer of data, and where appropriate anonymised data can be used for curriculum development. For example data on students’ food choices from cashless catering can be used to inform discussion about healthy eating. We would want the technology to recognise where students are engaged in learning, for example for attendance, but equally for having lunch in a partner establishment, with student recognition through their cashless catering provision.
For all students we need to have one automated input of data for a new student on admission to a school, whenever in the year that takes place, with all related databases automatically updated and populated with information relevant to that student, e.g. cashless catering, library facilities and appropriate registers for that student’s learning pathways. This will help the business of the school become more efficient and there will be a decreasing need for paper copies and forms to be completed.
The use of e-learning and a learning platform will support students and reduce the need to travel to different centres. Specialist schools will provide effective hubs for learning through the use of video conferencing and online exemplar lessons through a various communication channels.
- 43 - 4.4.3 14 – 19 Approach Training and Development Activities
The 14-19 programme for BSF will be supported by specific training and development activities. These will include both preparatory (to coincide with the Early Services period between 2010 and 2012) and full-service programmes that will dovetail with the work currently being undertaken by the 14-19 partnership, which currently operate the programme.
Bidders will be challenged to work with the Authority to develop the training and development programme. There will be clear requirements to develop training, Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for teachers in its widest aspect, training needs for the wider school workforce and for students. There will also be a requirement to support the delivery of training and support services to employers supporting young people and consideration will given to the training needs of the local community. The challenge of delivering interoperable solutions across learning providers will require a significant degree of supported co-ordination and preparatory work.
4.4.4 Inclusion
We recognise the need to ensure that accommodation, curriculum opportunity and levels of support for learners excluded from mainstream are appropriate to support their re-integration and prevent young people becoming Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET). To this end, we would expect that intervention strategies are in place and Individual Education Plans, particularly for our most vulnerable students are available electronically to any appropriate professional working with these students. Where students attend more than one educational setting or partner learning establishment, we expect that information to be available
Resources available on the learning platform will need to be accessible by all students, including those with Special Education Needs (SEN), English as an Additional Language (EAL) and those who are most vulnerable. Care will be taken to ensure that e-resources supporting the learning of these students in particular, are available to them in a form they can access, and that access to them is not location dependent.
4.5 ICT OPTIONS APPRAISAL
We recognise the need to invest in developing an ICT provision for Derby that will meet the aspirations we have, for the future of learning across the city.
There is no case to seek the ICT managed service delivery either from a pre-existing Council-provided source or through a pre-existing relationship with a single or dominant supplier. Moreover, the level of integration required to achieve the Authority's aims demands expertise and capacity that can only be provided by a single, area-wide supplier of ICT managed services.
As a consequence, the Authority will adopt the approach described in the PfS standard model, i.e. an area-wide, ICT managed service contract through the LEP.
- 44 - With the exception of the WAN provision, all functional areas covered by the ICT Output Specification (Appendix 2 Annex 2) will be within the procurement scope.
4.6 ICT RISK MANAGEMENT
The Authority is using the Standard LEP model and therefore the standard ICT Risk Allocation Matrix for identification and allocation of risks between the LEP and the Authority applies. This can be found in Appendix 4 Annex 2.
The ICT project is also contributing to the overall programme risk log which can be found in Appendix 4 Annex 1.
4.7 LEGACY EQUIPMENT
The Authority will agree a full Legacy Equipment schedule with the LEP ICT partner in order to protect planned investment by schools in ICT during the period up to the establishment of the managed service in each school.
The diagram below demonstrates how a typical Legacy Equipment schedule would work.
The Authority will seek agreement from the LEP ICT partner to provide schools and the Authority with a specification, which will automatically be deemed acceptable to migrate to the managed service.
When equipment has been migrated it will no longer need to be “bought” by the LEP at the point at which the fully managed service commences. The school’s Local Choice Fund will then benefit to the sum of the cost of the device, less cost for testing.
Where equipment does not fall into the category described above, for example because it would be out of warranty at the start of the managed service (this might include, say, Interactive White Boards (IWB) or thin clients which have standard warranties but are “long life” assets), the Authority will negotiate with the LEP to deliver the best risk terms
- 45 - possible for their adoption on to the managed service. The presumption would be that every ICT asset in each school would be fully managed by the LEP.
This Legacy agreement will be subject to detailed negotiation between the Authority and the LEP ICT partner.
4.8 ICT AND GENERAL SUSTAINABILITY
The Authority is committed to developing the most sustainable mix of resource use throughout the lifetime of the programme. The system design will mitigate against the need for substantial changes and the scalability requirements will ensure that additional technologies can be incorporated into the initial system configuration.
Schools have embraced the need for revenue funding for the ICT solution to be integrated into their financial planning and budgeting procedures. The schools’ revenue contribution has been set at an amount which will ensure the solution is maintained at the appropriate level for the duration of the contract. The ICT Cost Model demonstrates this.
Schools plans have been heavily influenced by the work completed in stakeholder engagement meetings and total cost of ownership audits (see above). Schools have developed a comprehensive understanding of sustainability requirements and of the need to continue to invest in ICT in the period running up to service commencement. This understanding of the early investment required to deliver a sustainable solution is supported by the Authority’s commitment to negotiate a Legacy Equipment Schedule (see above) with the LEP. This active commitment to protect existing investment is crucial for the success of the sustainability component of the programme.
The Authority has also identified sufficient funding (illustrated in the ICT Cost Model) to fully refresh the centralised data centre which will deliver the area-wide services. At the end of the ICT Services Contract this will be either:
• handed back to the Authority to continue delivering services to schools; or • used by the LEP to deliver services under a contract extension agreed with the Authority.
The LEP will also be challenged to deliver a full refresh of ICT Assets in the refresh pool in year four of the contract. The LEP will deliver new equipment with four year warranties which will last until the end of the third year of any contract extension or alternative provision. This will allow for the most efficient available deployment of BSF funding and help schools to plan their own investment from their own Devolved Formula Capital funding.
There will be a clear need to establish the basis on which the LEP will hand back the centralised infrastructure (and any local servers). The indicative financials model a position in which the infrastructure is fully refreshed (except, of course, for those assets carrying lifetime warranties) prior to the end of the contract and is subject to hand back testing (which should be not less rigorous than initial implementation testing). This
- 46 - creates a ten year envelope (to coincide with the exclusivity period), which has been modelled from within the existing funding.
The Authority has recognised the need to deliver effective contract governance and has allocated resources to deliver this requirement. This approach has been combined with the development of effective monitoring capacity. It is anticipated that impact and value for money assessments will be delivered by a mixture of internal resources analysing contract merits.
In line with Becta guidance and the Supplementary OBC ICT Guidance issued by Partnerships for schools, the ICT solution is sustainable because of:
• comprehensive stakeholder buy in • ongoing funding • centrally managed CPD programme, supported by the LEP partner • recognition of need for ongoing monitoring and management.
4.9 ICT AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
The Authority views the influencing factors described below as key factors in minimising the environmental impact of increasing numbers of powered devices. The Authority will challenge the LEP to deliver efficient and integrated solutions by making this a key determiner. The influencing factors are:
• Weather Data • Acoustic Environment • Occupancy and Function • Orientation • Window Head Height • Opening Mechanisms • External Shading • Internal Blinds • Frame Material • Trickle Vent Design • Thermal Mass Coupling • Glass Specification • Infiltration Rate • Rebate and Sill Detail • Measuring the free area
Energy - Increased use of electrically powered equipment would suggest an increased carbon footprint. In this BSF project the Authority is mindful of the continuous trend of energy efficiency per device, through technological innovation such as Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) and more efficient components, as well as the significant energy savings in school building design and refurbishment. Further energy savings will be effected from the enabled transformation of educational working practices, including students working from home, video-conferencing, online collaborations and staggered timetabling. Although students will participate in courses
- 47 - from a number of establishments, the net travel requirements for both staff and students in the schools’ estate will be reduced.
Resources - Paper consumption will reduce through a range of practices including:
• Learning Platform and personalised online learning spaces with electronic submission and marking of homework and assignments leading to less need for notebooks, paper timetables, exercise books, physical portfolios. • Increased use of electronic resources for learning and teaching resulting in decreased printing, photocopying, physical book requirements. • Email, text/instant messaging, e-bulletin boards / podcasts etc. for communications with and from parents and two-way electronic communication within schools and with other partners by reducing the number of printed letters or communications used internally, sent to the home or to other establishments).
Toxicity - In line with the BSF expectation that any equipment reflects reduced usage of toxic components and demonstrates energy efficiency, the Authority will explore the options offered with a view to energy efficient configurations and deployments.
The LEP ICT partner will be required to dispose of redundant equipment in accordance with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and the Recycling of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directives.
4.10 ICT AND IMPROVED PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Investment in ICT provided by BSF funding will allow us to put technology in the hands of the learner when and where it is needed. We want to ensure that ICT is embedded in the curriculum with learners and teachers feeling empowered through the use of a range of personal digital devices. This will have a sustained impact on standards by providing a more personalised and engaging curriculum, particularly for students who are currently likely to become disaffected or disengaged.
Derby is committed to developing its range of data sets in order for all appropriate parties to be better informed about its students. In our schools of the future, with this enhanced data provision and analysis, it will be much easier to put together effective strategies and support frameworks at an early stage to ensure that more and more of our young people succeed in mainstream situations. BSF funding will help us make a step change to monitor closely the tracking progress of all our students by a range of professionals within and across establishments, This will impact on end-of-key stage assessments as well as formative assessment.
Our ICT infrastructure will allow us to further develop our collaborative working and allow us to enrich all areas of learning, providing access to virtual communication tools, information and resources to children, their families and the wider community.
Leadership and management decisions will be made supported by evidence from data sources and the administration and management of schools will operate more efficiently. We will similarly explore the use of ICT in enabling accurate diagnosis and
- 48 - early intervention not just at pupil level, but also at teacher, curriculum and school levels.
The CPD of staff throughout the schools, and Authority staff, is key to the transformation of learning and will be ongoing to sustain the momentum of educational and pedagogic development which will render the ICT solution effective. ICT operational skills for new technologies will also receive training attention to establish sustainable user proficiency. The Authority will work, in partnership with the LEP, to develop a programme for CPD that is both comprehensive and targeted in the pedagogic exploitation of the ICT solutions as well as the initial induction of technical and operational ICT skills. A formative assessment of the effectiveness of all CPD will be reported to an annual meeting of the LEP Board which will contribute to ongoing review of CPD needs and provision for the following year.
Schools are being actively encouraged to engage with the Becta ICT Self Review Framework to ensure effective decision making about all aspects of ICT across and between learning establishments both now and in the future.
4.11 ICT PHASING (EARLY AND INTERIM SERVICE PROVISION)
The phasing of the ICT programme will follow that of the construction programme, being of three phases over three years commencing 2012, 2013 and 2014. The diagram below (figure 1) shows the phasing (though final building phasing will only be definitively agreed at OBC) and the earliest that a school may benefit from the full managed service in their school.
The diagram also shows Early Services being deployed from the beginning of the 2010/2011 academic year. These Early Services have yet to reach a fully developed scope stage however typically will include learning platform, Management Information Systems (MIS), Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and email. The scope will be subject to internal debate and discussion with Bidders during the Dialogue phases of the procurement.
Early Services are designed to provide a platform for schools to start their migration to the full Managed Service. They should deliver a programme to ensure that the maximum value is obtained for the services being delivered. It is the intention of the Derby programme to deploy the services described above, but also to fund the migration of learning objects between “old” platforms and the “new” application. We have recognised that the Early Services would need to be funded by an early draw down of capital and these are part of continuing discussions with PfS.
- 49 -
The diagram shows schools joining the Early Services two years prior to the start of each phase. Schools in phases 2 and 3 could also join earlier.
It is intended that funding for Early Services will deliver change management, including any training, necessary to enable schools to take seamless advantage of their new ICT environment from buildings completion.
The funding will also ensure that the change management programme is supported by allowing access to all aggregated central services to enable the benefits of BSF area- wide services to be utilised during the pre-build phase of the programme. It will also commence certain transition services, including data migration, to ensure seamless move to “new” schools.
As mentioned earlier, these Early Services have yet to reach a fully developed scope stage and will be subject to internal debate with stakeholders as to the most appropriate mix of facilities and services to be procured and intense discussion with Bidders during the Dialogue phases of the procurement process.
Interim Services, which include the early provision of the Managed Service into schools before construction completion for each school, are being considered but have not yet been fully explored with schools. We would expect this to be optional at school level and may include the early TUPE transfer of technicians. We would expect the bidders to present suitable options for provision of these services into schools.
4.12 ICT COSTS AND FUNDING
Capital funding of £25m has been allocated through the Funding Allocation Model (FAM). It has been confirmed that this will be paid to Wave 5 authorities as a grant rather than supported borrowing and it is sufficient to deliver the Council and schools' vision for the ICT solution. Cost estimates for the delivery of the ICT solution set out in the Output Specification across the whole wave are provided in the ICT Indicative Cost model set out in Appendix 7 Annex 4, which has been prepared in consultation with our ICT advisers Mouchel.
The model is based on the Academies model for procurement, with live detail.
- 50 - Assumptions have been made as to direct costs associated with the programme, these are detailed within the Indicative Cost Model. All costs are 2008 costs.
The capital proposals included within the OBC are affordable and include the up front delivery of change management and central services to all BSF schools, assuming that all capital funding is also provided up front.
Annual costs of the ICT Managed Services solution are estimated at approximately £627k in the initial years, rising to £2.4m following full services commencement. Funding for these costs will be met through initial milestone zero funding, and an estimated £160 per pupil contribution once full services are being delivered.
All secondary head teachers have agreed in principle to the ICT managed service and will commit to an estimated revenue contribution of £160 per pupil per annum to ensure a sufficiently broad and sustainable level of equipment and service. The Authority has conducted a total cost of ownership exercise with schools which has resulted in an average spend for Derby schools on their existing ICT activities equivalent to £142 per pupil per year (based on 2008/9 projections). Appendix 9 Annex 7 sets out the standard form letters which have been signed on behalf of governing bodies of all schools in the wave as part of the OBC process.
There is approximately £1.46m of funding allocated to deliver installation and implementation transition. This is shown in the ICT Indicative Cost Model, at Appendix 7 Annex 4, in the row entitled "Legacy Integration/Professional Services".
To ensure the full managed service provision is accessible across all buildings on all school sites (including those building not affected by refurbishment), an additional £4m has been allocated from the BSF Capital Works Budget to fund any ICT related improvements required.
There are no additional costs associated with scalability. We believe that our costed solution will accommodate 50,000 users (20,000 current actual estimate of users needed) and is therefore sufficient.
The ICT solution will deliver the required flexibility through • the ability of the option to provide both thin and fat client, mobile and wireless devices. • the use of Local Choice Fund to support particular requirements and specialisms within schools (currently estimated at 18%). The costs of delivering this flexibility are within those set out in the ICT Indicative Cost Model.
The Managed Service Provider (MSP) should work to ensure that schools with specialisms are able to express, exploit and share their expertise with access to technology within the Learning Platform (LP) that is both content-based and tool- based. For example, modelling and simulation software for Enterprise, Arts, Science and PE.
- 51 - The lifecycle assumptions made fall into the following two categories:
• Central infrastructure – lifecycle costs have been included within the costing model for central infrastructure. Full refresh has been costed into the model, with a refresh of the data centre within the last six months of the last year of the contract. This ensures excellent handback requirements. • Whiteboards/data projectors/laptops/desktops – a lifecycle sinking fund has been costed for these items based on 10% of total capital costs.
These lifecycle assumptions are deliverable and sufficient to maintain the assets for the life cycle of the project.
The Authority recognise that the preferred ICT solution will require a greater level of ICT programme team costs to ensure successful implementation and ongoing management although the final structure required is not fully determined. The affordability report to Cabinet (Appendix 9) highlighted a need to recognise these ICT related costs alongside the overall programme management requirement.
The preferred delivery route for each individual element within the specification is according to the PfS standard documentation. A copy of the Authority's ICT Output Specification is attached as Appendix 2 Annex 2.
This approach to determining an affordable and deliverable model has been robust and measurable against standard procurement scopes (particularly multi-Academy programmes). The market has been engaged in modelling activities with our advisors and has helped to shape the funding assessment model. All ICT cost assumptions are "on-market", deliverable and fit for purpose.
Additional information on ICT Affordability is available in section 6.4
4.13 ICT LEADING AND MANAGING CHANGE
Derby has a strong record in change management, as evidenced through the way in which we have successfully supported schools through National Curriculum change, Teaching and Learning Review and other developments. We therefore understand that the ambitious plans for transformation will require the development of an effective change management strategy enabling the transformation of strategy, processes, technology and people (more detail available in Section 8).
There will be a massive investment in ICT through the BSF programme and this will inevitably impact on roles and responsibilities, business processes and changes in working practice for all involved.
The ICT change management programme will make a strategically important contribution to the Authority's educational attainment objectives. It will require:
- 52 - • Teachers to develop improved competence in the understanding and analysis of data in order to inform more focussed planning and target setting for students and in particular in their use of assessment for learning.
• A skills audit to be undertaken prior to CPD. In line with National Secondary Strategy drivers, students will be encouraged to undertake self-assessment and peer assessment in order to take more responsibility for their own learning.
• The increasing use of contextual data emerging from contributions from multi agency services (see above), which will provide schools with a wider perception of the "whole child", leading to more informed planning for personalised learning to meet the needs of individuals. Teachers, paraprofessionals and other appropriate adults will receive training in the use of this data. This will lead to earlier identification of necessary intervention strategies.
• Teachers to continue developing their understanding of learning styles so that these are identified for every child, and appropriate and differentiated resources to support their learning will be accessible from the learning platform by students, linked to both their maturity and capability.
• Digital devices to be available for all students to use to support their learning, complemented by appropriate ICT resources for those whose SEN require them to access the curriculum through this medium.
• Teachers to be trained in the pedagogical benefits to learning of emerging technologies, to ensure that the life of the resource is sustainable beyond the immediacy of its initial novelty value. The educational activity should be at least as engaging as using the resource.
• Availability of resources, virtual and real to the wider community for increased potential for lifelong learning and skills opportunities. The learning platform will play a substantial part in that development, with provision of information about health, leisure, education opportunities, family support and sources of advice.
• Opportunities for closer liaison with families, parents and carers, and particularly for parents to be more closely involved with their children’s learning and school experience, from the range of information to which they will have access.
• Parents will need to be trained in the use of the learning platform to access information for their own development, but also how to navigate their way to a wide range of school information provided virtually about their children.
The availability of the Learning Platform for parental access is to be promoted to assist parents in developing greater involvement in their children's progress. This is a radical change management process positively impacting on the learning potential of all students.
- 53 -
In addition, staff that work with schools from the Council’s Centre will develop new ways of working with them, particularly via the new technologies. This will impact on the way they communicate with schools, share data and information and generally interact with them. They will be able to work more efficiently and in a more timely way.
We will search for opportunities enabled by the technologies to reduce form-filling and paper exercises which are currently barriers to the efficiency and effectiveness of the core business of schools and the Local Authority. More widely available data sources will also result in more confident leadership decisions, supported by timely information.
As mentioned previously, Schools are being actively encouraged to engage with the Becta ICT Self Review Framework to ensure effective decision making about all aspects of ICT across and between learning establishments both now and in the future. This will also ensure that ICT is embedded in the curriculum and that learners and teachers feel empowered.
The preference is for the LEP and the Authority to share responsibility for change management activities, including the deliverables described above. The presumption is that the Authority will retain its commissioning role and overall responsibility for ensuring that statutory obligations are met, together with the performance management of LEP change management activities.
The Authority will determine, with the LEP, the most appropriate allocation of the tasks associated with the change management programme. The Authority is developing its change management programme generally and will develop a joined-up approach with the LEP which places the responsibility for "hard deliverables", with the LEP and leaves the Authority responsible for commissioning and management of the programme.
A formal approach to change management will evolve during the academic year 08/09, the ICT transition plan will be further developed in line with the overall programme change plan and individual school change plans. This will ensure clearly defined roles, responsibilities and ownership across Derby. Key focus will be on establishing a formal network of change agents and champions, developing KPIs and readiness assessment gates at each key stage of the process to monitor progress.
The change management plan for the overall BSF programme, including the change management implications for the new ICT service is included in Appendix 23 Annex 1. In addition, initial thoughts about ICT activities and groups can be found in Appendix 23 Annex 2.
- 54 - SECTION 5: VALUE FOR MONEY
5.1 SUMMARY OF PROCUREMENT ROUTE FOR WAVE
The procurement route for each of the projects in the BSF programme has been selected in accordance with BSF guidance. Guidance states “evidence suggests that PFI offers best Value for Money (VfM) when delivering completely new build schools and a programme level assessment has been made that new build schools will be delivered through PFI contracts”. The Council has agreed, in line with Treasury Guidance, that where the new build percentage exceeds 70% and the capital cost of the scheme exceeds £20 million, the procurement route will be PFI. This has identified three PFI schools for Derby’s programme - Noel-Baker, St Martins and Lees Brook.
The following table shows the percentage of proposed new build at each school and the choice of procurement route in accordance with the funding available and funding guidance.
School Phase % New Build Procurement Noel Baker 1a 96% PFI Sample St Martins 1a 100% PFI Sample Derby Moor 1a 59% Conventional Sample Lees Brook 1b 85% PFI Bemrose 2 65% Conventional Littleover 2 52% Conventional St Benedict’s 2 28% Conventional St Clare’s 2 100% Conventional Sinfin 6th Form Ext. 2 100% Conventional PRU (Kingsmead 2/3 100% Conventional Special School) Chellaston 3 11% Conventional Murray Park 3 19% Conventional West Park 3 13% Conventional Woodlands 3 25% Conventional St Andrew’s 3 28% Conventional
It is proposed to retain the refurbished sports hall at Noel Baker. Noel Baker and St Martins are to be co-located on the existing Noel Baker site and with a combined capital cost of £37.5m (at January 08 prices) will be attractive to the market as the PFI sample scheme.
Lees Brook is essentially new build and includes a recently built Sixth Form Centre and is suitable for procurement under a PFI contract according to guidance.
Value for Money (VfM) of these two projects is demonstrated in this section of the OBC.
- 55 - St Clare’s is a community special school to be built at a cost of £9.5m and is considered to small for procurement under a PFI contract.
The proposed PRU (Kingsmead Special School) new build cost is for development on several sites (already owned by the Council) some of which will be co-located at existing conventionally procured schools.
Sinfin Sixth Form is an extension to an existing conventionally procured school.
There are five further schools that will benefit from BSF investment in respect of ICT only.
5.2 THE PFI PROJECTS
In accordance with Treasury Guidance “Value for Money Assessment Guidance” (November 2006), the Council has considered Value for Money for the three schools it is proposed to procure through PFI contracts.
The preferred procurement option has been qualitatively determined with a separate soft services assessment followed by quantitative assessment, which together determine value for money of the preferred procurement route.
Details of the affordability gap generated by the PFI schemes and how the Council plans to fund these schemes is included in Section 6.2.
5.3 QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT The qualitative assessment considers the viability, desirability and achievability of the Private Finance Option (PFO). The full qualitative assessment is included at Appendix 3 Annex 1. A summary is given below:
5.3.1 Viability For PFI to be viable the investment objectives and desired outcomes need to be translatable into outputs that can form the basis of a contract and a sound payment mechanism; for example the quality and quantity of the outputs need to be ones that can be measured.
Viability has been assessed across the headings: programme level objectives; operational flexibility; equity, efficiency and accountability.
The assessment concludes that by using BSF standard documentation with limited use of derogations and using Derby’s recent experience of PFI delivery, there is assurance that the whole programme is viable within the proposed contractual structure, under the control of the Council and the future LEP. The Council are adopting the PfS standard payment mechanism documentation which will link the unitary charge with availability and performance standards. This is currently being produced and will be submitted to PfS on 5 December 2008 alongside the other procurement documentation as set out in Section 7.2.2.
- 56 - 5.3.2 Desirability The guidance indicates that PFI can provide better risk management and produce incentives to develop innovative approaches to output delivery and that consistent high quality services can be incentivised through performance and payment mechanisms. However, risk transfer is priced into the contract and the purpose of the assessment is to consider whether the benefits of PFI are likely to outweigh any additional costs and disadvantages.
Desirability has been assessed under the headings: contract duration and residual value; incentive and monitoring; and lifecycle costs.
There are a number of factors to support the projects desirability. As with all projects of this size there is a significant level of risk in terms of cost and time overruns. These will be borne by the PFI contractor.
In addition, the benefits that accrue through innovative, efficient design and an ongoing programme of lifecycle and maintenance (which take a whole life view of a project) would seem to further emphasis the desirability of the PFI option.
5.3.3 Achievability
The guidance indicates that while PFI may allow a more efficient and effective combination of public and private sector skills, determining the rules that will govern the relationship between the two sectors does involve significant transaction costs. In particular, the procurement process can be complex and involve significant resources, including senior management time which may be required for project development and the ongoing monitoring of service delivery. Authority capacity and capability, together with private sector deliverability will have direct consequences for procurement times and the level and quality of market interest. PFI needs a robust competitive process to deliver fully its benefits and so the choice of procurement route should be informed by an assessment of the likely market appetite.
The assessment concludes that Derby’s BSF project is attractive to the market. The market is mature and capable of delivery. The Council has well resourced, qualified and motivated internal team to manage the process, fully supported by a team of experienced external advisers across relevant disciplines. It is considered that the programme is achievable within the timescales and resources allocated.
5.4 SOFT SERVICES
The inclusion of soft services in PFI contracts is reflected in standard documentation and it is understood that this inclusion is favoured at programme level by PfS.
In assessing whether to include soft services in the PFI contracts the Council has to consider whether it would be VfM by creating overall benefits outweighing any additional costs and how these benefits would be delivered.
The assessment considered issues including: design integration; whole life costs; lower interface issues and single point of contact; effective management of resources;
- 57 - flexibility requirements; financial incentivisation; and other issues affecting stakeholders.
The qualitative assessment supports the use of PFI for the new build projects in the BSF programme and the inclusion of premises related soft services therein.
Overall the benefits of including premises related soft services in the PFI contracts outweigh the additional costs and constraints from inclusion. It is therefore proposed that soft services in respect of premises be transferred to the PFI provider as in the case of Derby’s Grouped Schools PFI project as this will be best value for money. Service transfer is necessary to achieve the optimum amount of risk transfer which in turn will provide wider incentive to perform.
The full soft services qualitative assessment is included at Appendix 3 Annex 2.
5.5 QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT
In accordance with the BSF and HM Treasury guidance, Derby has prepared the VfM quantitative assessment in accordance with the HM Treasury ‘Value for Money Assessment Guidance’, issued in November 2006, incorporating the HM Treasury PFI Quantitative Evaluation Spreadsheet.
The Spreadsheet has been designed specifically to aid procuring Authorities in their choice between procurement routes, it does therefore:
• not give an affordability envelope; • not provide the basis for bid evaluation or reference model; and • not provide a pass/fail point estimate for deciding between PFI and conventional procurement
Therefore, no formal Project Steering Committee (PSC) financial model has been produced, the PSC being effectively calculated within this model based on inputs derived from the whole life cost model / shadow bid.
The full H M Treasury model is attached at Appendix 3 Annex 3 Value for Money Quantitative Assessment. . 5.6 SUMMARY OF VfM ANALYSIS
Based on the inputs described in the Appendix 3 Annex 3 the HM Treasury Quantitative Assessment tool demonstrates that the PFI element of Derby’s BSF project will deliver VFM over the PSC option. This evidence is based on the output analysis generated by the Spreadsheet, summarised below and based on a target pre- tax equity return of 15%
- 58 - 5.6.1 Summary of Crude PFI VfM
Crude PFI VfM Cost difference/ (%)
Base Financial VfM Model £17.63m (11.11%)
Lifecycle Cost Sensitivity -5% £17.02m (10.76%) +5% £18.25m (11.45%)
Operating Cost (employment and non-employment) Sensitivity -5% £14.81m (9.50%) +5% £20.46m (12.66%)
Combined Lifecycle and Operating Cost Sensitivity -5% £14.19m (9.14%) +5% £21.08m (13.00%)
In simple terms, as the Crude PFI VfM value in the Output sheet is greater than zero for all three Internal Rate of Return (IRR) targets, based on the assumptions used the Council can reasonably conclude that the PFI Option is more likely to provide VfM than conventional procurement. Even allowing for fluctuations in both lifecycle and operating costs, the PFI option continues to represent VfM.
The table below demonstrates how much values have to change for PFI to cease being the best VfM option:
5.6.2 Indicative Crude PFI VfM
Indifference Point Capital Cost Indifference Point 20% Unitary Charge Indifference Point 14%
The changes to the unitary charge or capital costs required for this to occur are significant. The percentages provide comfort that changes to the model’s assumptions and inputs are unlikely to change the overall conclusion that the PFI element of the project represents VfM.
5.7 OPTIMISM BIAS
Mitigated optimism bias has been prepared in accordance with the supplementary green book guidance as follows;
Pre Financial Business Case Optimism Bias has been calculated using PFS programme level assumptions in the PFI Quantitative Evaluation Spreadsheet.
- 59 - The Post Financial Close Optimism Bias has been prepared in conjunction with the Council’s advisers and is in accordance with HM Treasury Guidance, this includes a direct optimism bias assessment based on the Council’s recent experience of capital projects together with a detailed quantification of risk.
The table below summarises the various percentages of optimism bias used in the Evaluation Spreadsheet.
Optimism Bias
Cost Type Pre FBC Optimism Post FBC Optimism Bias Bias CAPEX 7% 17% LIFECYCLE 9% 15% OPEX 8% 33% 5.8 CONCLUSION TO PFI VfM ANALYSIS
In accordance with Treasury guidance the Value for Money (VfM) assessment of the two first wave PFI schools has been undertaken using a qualitative and quantitative assessment.
The qualitative assessment considers the viability, desirability and achievability of the PFI schools and to the inclusion of soft services. It acknowledges the fact that the project’s success cannot be determined purely in terms of cost.
Viability is demonstrated by the fact that there are no perceived efficiency, accountability or equity issues that dictate that services are provided directly by the Government or the Council, furthermore the Council is certain that an operable contract, clearly capturing the service requirements with sufficient in-built flexibility can be constructed.
Having assessed the relative benefits of the different procurement routes together with the advantages and disadvantages of entering into such a long term contract with the private sector, PFI is deemed to be desirable in so far as it would bring sufficient benefits that would outweigh the expected higher cost of capital.
The PFI is deemed achievable firstly in terms of being attractive to the market and secondly from the perspective of the Council being able to engage a partner with the capability to deliver and manage the service delivery.
The soft services qualitative assessment supports the inclusion of premises related soft services in the PFI contracts.
As the benefits of including premises related services in the PFI contracts outweighs the additional costs, it is proposed that soft services in respect of premises be transferred to the PFI provider as in the case of Derby’s Grouped Schools PFI project as this will be best value for money.
- 60 - The qualitative assessment is supplemented by a quantitative analysis that for the specified inputs at a target pre-equity rate of return of 15% provides a crude PFI VfM indicator of 14%, further demonstrating the VfM of the PFI option.
The PFI option demonstrates value for money.
5.9 THE CONVENTIONAL D AND B PROJECTS
The Council is aware that for conventional Design and Build contracts, it will not have to follow HM Treasury guidance on Facilities Management (FM) which is undertaken for PFI projects. The competitive procurement process to procure the LEP involving one sample D and B school will contribute to the demonstration of VfM. The bid prices will be benchmarked against the PfS database of other Authority BSF projects. The target costs of subsequent schemes will be fixed in consultation with the Councils external advisers and similarly benchmarked. In this way the Council will ensure that the D and B contracts are “on market” and this will be confirmed in writing by the Council’s external technical advisers and evidenced in the Final Business Case.
5.10 THE ICT PROJECT – VfM
The HM Treasury guidance on VfM is not applicable to ICT contracts in BSF.
The competitive procurement process to procure the LEP will include detailed bids for the provision of the ICT solution and the proposed ICT managed service. During competitive dialogue the Council will seek to optimise each bidders proposals and secure best value.
The Council will together with its external ICT adviser, ensure that the costs of solutions offered by bidders are “on market” and this will be confirmed in writing by the Council’s external ICT advisers and included in the Final Business Case.
- 61 - SECTION 6: AFFORDABILITY
6.1 THE FUNDING ENVELOPE
The Council received a funding envelope of £198.5m at January 2008 prices for BSF building works.
In addition the Council received a capital funding envelope of £25.0m at outturn prices for ICT hardware etc.
The funding allocation from PfS is shown in the Funding Allocation Model (FAM) in Appendix 6.
Following options appraisal detailed in the Strategy for Change Part 2 (SfC2) and referred to in Section 3 above, the funding envelope was allocated to the projects in the scheme, the sample schemes selected and the phasing determined.
Subsequently an assessment of excess abnormal building costs was carried out by the Councils external technical advisers and following discussions with PfS an increase to the funding envelope of £6m, determined. A copy of the completed PfS abnormals proforma is attached at Appendix 1 Annex 2.
A summary of the revised building programme including the indicative excess abnormal funding is shown in the following table. A cash flow statement for the programme is shown in Appendix 7 Annex 2 and further details of each scheme are shown in Appendix 7 Annex 3.
Cost at January 08 School prices
Phase 1 – (costs include excess abnormals for PFI schemes) Derby Moor Community Sports College £19.0m Noel-Baker Community School and Language College and St Martins School (PFI) £37.5m Lees Brook Community Sports College (PFI) £21.8m
Phase 2 St Clare's School £8.1m Bemrose School £22.2m Littleover Community School £20.0m Saint Benedict Catholic School and Performing Arts College £15.2m
Phase 3 Murray Park Community School £8.5m Woodlands School £8.2m Chellaston School £5.2m West Park School £5.3m
- 62 - St Andrew’s School £3.5m
PRU (Kingsmead Special School) provision £7.8m
Sinfin Community School (sixth form centre) £3.4m
Total preferred options £185.7m
Unallocated excess abnormal funding £4.6m
Unallocated funding for ICT related buildings work in school areas not being refurbished £4.0m
Programme contingency £10.2m
Sub total £204.5m
Estimated funding available for building works £204.5m
Estimated ICT funding £25.0m
Total estimated BSF funding available £229.5m
Council capital contribution £1.5m
Total £231.0m
6.2 PFI PROJECTS
6.2.1. Estimated PFI Charges
There are two PFI projects in Derby’s BSF programme which are shown in the table below together with relevant programme dates and the estimated unitary charge for each project, in the first full year of operation, and over the whole of the contract period expressed both in nominal terms and net present value terms.
Project Estimated Estimated Estimated NPV of Total Annual Financial Service Contract Unitary Unitary Unitary Close date start date end date Charge Charge Charge (discounted (Nominal) (price @ 6.0875%) base 2013/14)
Noel July 2010 September August £77.5m £183.0m £6.368m Baker/St 2012 2037 Martins
Lees December September August £40.5m £95.5m £3.323m Brook 2010 2012 2037
- 63 -
The unitary charge models have been prepared by Deloitte the Council’s external financial advisers based on capital costs, lifecycle and FM cost assumptions provided by Atkins Faithful and Gould, the Councils technical advisers. A summary of this can be found in Appendix 5.1 and full details of the key assumptions used is attached at Appendix 5 Annex 3 and Appendix 5 Annex 4.
The summary of the Sources and Uses of Funds from the model is attached at Appendix 5 Annex 2.
6.2.2 Estimated PFI Credits and Affordability Model
The level of PFI credits allocated to each project has been agreed with PfS based on the estimated capital costs at their respective start dates, including excess abnormal costs allowed by PfS for each project.
The agreed capital costs are mainly increased by a multiplier of 1.65 to give the entitlement to PFI credits. The 1.65 multiplier covers the assumed LEP set up and bid costs, lifecycle costs, financing cash flows and tax flows as well as the initial capital value of the project. The multiplier is set at a rate which assumes a contribution from the Authority that has been assessed by PfS and the DCSF, through work with pathfinder authorities, to be affordable.
For enabling works such as demolitions and asbestos removal, which do not have a lifecycle element, the multiplier is 1.25
Annual grant is calculated on an annuity basis assuming payment of the value of PFI credits over 25 years and applying an interest rate on the outstanding balance. The interest rate used is determined by Government at the financial close of each phase of the project.
The PFI credits and resulting grant for Noel Baker and St Martins will be fixed for 25 years by the DCSF on approval of this OBC.
The PFI credits and resulting grant for Lees Brook are indicative at present and will be adjusted to take account of changes in building inflation as indicated in the updated forecasts of the DTI PUBSEC index, before DCSF approval of the second phase and any variation in the interest rate.
The total PFI credits and grant derived from the credits over each contract period are estimated as follows:
Project PFI Credits PFI Annual PFI grant over 25 Grant years
Noel Baker and St Martin’s £70.700m £5.219m £130.483m
Lees Brook £39.098m £2.886m £72.158m
- 64 -
Total £109.798m £8.105m £202.641m
The PFI annuity interest rate used for both PFI schemes is 5.4%, based on the interest rates assumed by the Department for Communities and Local Government in calculating the Capital Financing RNF for local authorities for 2008/09 (which have accurately predicted the PFI Annuity Grant Interest Rate fixed later), over a number of years. The scaling factor assumed remains at 1.0 as it has done for the 4 years to 2007/08.
The PFI Grant will be drawn down on completion of the building works when the PFI service commences. It is anticipated that this will be in September 2012 for both the Noel Baker and St Martins project and for Lees Brook.
6.2.3 School Contributions
The Governing Body of each proposed PFI school has signed an agreement in principle which outlines the school contributions from their delegated budgets towards meeting the cost of soft FM as follows:
School Estimated in first full year Estimated total over 2013/14 contract period
Noel Baker £681,614 £26,025,073
St Martins £111,477 £4,256,367
Lees Brook £521,497 £19,911,565
Total £1,314,589 £50,193,005
The contributions are based on the average actual costs of FM incurred by the City’s secondary schools and inflated using RPIX.
Letters from each school agreeing to these levels of contributions are attached at Appendix 9 Annex 6.
6.2.4 Overall affordability of the PFI projects
The following table shows the total “affordability gap” for the PFI schools which is the combined unitary charge less the total grant derived from PFI credits and the agreed contribution from each school over the period of the contract.
- 65 - Total Estimated Total grant derived Total School Total Affordability unitary charge from PFI credits contribution gap
£278.449m £202.641m £50.193m £25.615m
It should be noted that the funding of the LEP, set up and bid costs is largely carried by the PFI projects rather than over the whole BSF programme including those schemes procured under D and B contracts. The affordability gap should therefore be seen as a programme wide cost rather than attributed to the individual PFI schools
The affordability gap totalling £25.615m over the period of the contracts is equivalent to an annual sum of £671,000 in 2013/14 (the first full financial year when the unitary charge becomes payable) and subsequently inflated at RPIX assumed at 3.5% a year and totalled.
The overall affordability of the programme has been considered and was approved by Cabinet on 30 September 2008. Cabinet agreed that the affordability gap arising from the PFI contracts will be met from the Dedicated Schools Grant. A copy of the Cabinet Report is attached at Appendix 9 Annex 3. The information in this report has been used to form the affordability section of the OBC. As set out in Section 1.1, the Council has submitted the OBC to its agreed PfS deadline of 10 October prior to Cabinet approval. Council Cabinet will consider the OBC at its meeting on 28 October 2008.
The Schools Forum had already agreed in principle, at its meeting held on 25 March 2008, that it would contribute an annual sum the equivalent of £689,000 in 2013/14 inflated at RPIX (assumed at 3.5%) totalling £27.9m to meet a potential affordability gap from service commencement to the end of the contract which is sufficient to cover the affordability gap now estimated.
In the event of the affordability gap exceeding this sum then the Schools Forum will be asked to meet the excess.
6.2.5 Local Authority Contributions
As stated above the affordability gap will be met from the Dedicated Schools Grant and this has been agreed by both the Schools Forum and Cabinet
An affordability summary showing the position over the lifetime of the PFI contracts is attached at Appendix 7 Annex 1.
Sensitivity analysis is a continuous feature of our financial modelling and includes the following:
• If the interest rate for borrowing the capital to fund the PFI schemes changed by 0.5% the annual affordability gap would change by £390,000.
- 66 -
• If the interest rate at which the PFI grant is calculated reduced by 0.1% then the annual grant would reduce by £50,000.
• If the multiplier used in calculating PFI credits for the second PFI reduced from 1.65 to 1.60 then the annual affordability gap would increase by £55,000.
• If the capital costs increased by 5% (without equivalent increase in PFI credits) the annual affordability gap would increase by £250,000.
6.3 CONVENTIONALLY PROCURED PROJECTS
6.3.1 Capital Cost
The following table shows on a phase by phase basis the estimated construction cost of the projects to be procured conventionally by design and build contracts. A summary of the key details and the estimated capital costs of each project the conventionally procured projects within the programme are shown in Appendix 7 Annex 3.
The expenditure to be funded by the Council is for those items of abnormal expenditure in respect of works outside school sites such as traffic works which are required as a condition of planning permission and which cannot therefore be funded from the funding envelope.
The options appraisal for the work at each school on which the allocation of funding was based was carried out on the understanding that when detailed design work was completed, any variation in cost would be contained within the funding envelope. A significant sum was therefore set aside as a contingency to meet these cost, if necessary.
If the contingent sum is not necessary for these purposes then it is the intention to consider additional projects on a priority basis to be funded from the remaining amount.
Capital costs of conventionally procured projects
Cost at January 08 School prices
Phase 1– sample scheme Derby Moor Community Sports College £19.0m
Phase 2 St Clare's School £8.1m Bemrose School £22.2m Littleover Community School £20.0m Saint Benedict Catholic School and Performing Arts College £15.2m
- 67 -
Phase 3 Murray Park Community School £8.5m Woodlands School £8.2m Chellaston School £5.2m West Park School £5.3m St Andrew’s School £3.5m PRU (Kingsmead Special School) provision £7.8m Sinfin Community School (sixth form centre) £3.4m
Total preferred options £126.4m
Unallocated excess abnormal funding £4.6m
Programme contingency £10.2m
Total £141.2m
Derby Moor is the sample school to be procured under Design and Build contract which is anticipated to start in September 2010.
The capital cost at the start date for each scheme is shown in Appendix 7 Annex 3.
The estimated additional funding for the excess abnormals for each scheme is shown in Appendix 1 Annex 2.
6.3.2 Lifecycle/Hard FM Costs
Individual schools included in the BSF building programme have considered and approved a report on the costs identified to deliver a common level of life cycle and hard FM provision for the conventionally funded schools. These costs will be met, where possible, from Devolved Formula Capital (DFC) grant, the School Modernisation Grant (SMG), assuming that these sources of annual funding remain at current levels in real terms. The secondary schools in Derby have enjoyed a high level of independence and autonomy (granted by government) over decisions on expenditure from DFC and from their revenue budgets, and this will continue. The Council will consult with individual schools annually on their expenditure plans and take these into account in deploying the Schools Modernisation Grant. The priorities of the entire school estate will also be considered in allocating this annual grant.
The approvals in principle from individual schools to the proposed scheme are included in Appendix 9 Annex 6. The details of the proposals which cover a ten year period (the initial life of the LEP) and will be subject to review thereafter are included in a formal report to Council Cabinet which is also included in Appendix 9 Annex 3.
- 68 - 6.4 ICT PROJECTS
ICT Capital
The funding envelope for ICT Capital from the BSF programme is £25m. It has been confirmed that this will be paid to wave 5 authorities as a grant rather than through supported borrowing.
An indicative model showing the allocation of the ICT capital has been prepared in consultation with the external ICT adviser (Mouchel). The following table shows a summary of the model.
Costs Indicative Investment £m Change Management £3m Local Choice £5m Hardware £9m Software £2m Network Infrastructure £4m Implementation costs £2m
Total £25m
ICT Managed Service
The indicative model provided by Mouchel also contains an affordability assessment for the ICT managed service which has been based on the ICT output specification which has been drawn up in consultation with schools.
The indicative modelling has demonstrated that the Council will be able to procure an ICT managed service based on the output specification with the cost of the service being approximately £160 per pupil per year.
Schools were given an early indication that the likely costs would be in the range of £125 - £175 per pupil. The Council is therefore able to demonstrate that there is sufficient scope within the indicative range to take into account an increase of up to 9% above the £160 per pupil per year should actual costs vary from the indicative modelling.
Letters from each school agreeing in principle to the ICT Managed Service which include the above estimates of likely costs are attached at Appendix 9 Annex 7.
A copy of the external adviser model for both ICT capital investment and the ICT managed service is included at Appendix 7 Annex 4.
To ensure continuation of service across all buildings on all school sites (including those building not affected by refurbishment), a sum of £4m has been allocated from the BSF capital works budget to fund ICT related improvements.
Additional information is available in section 4.12 ICT Costs and Funding.
- 69 - 6.5 LOCAL AUTHORITY INVESTMENT IN LEP
The Council has agreed to investment in the LEP at a level advised by Deloitte which is expected to be in the range of £100,000 to £200,000.
In addition the Council will have an option to take a direct investment share in the PFI contracts up to the value of around 1% of the total capital investment of the PFI project. It is understood that individual bidders will propose different levels of investment in their bid submissions and the Council will make its decision at the appropriate time.
A copy of the Cabinet report dated 18 March 2008 detailing the financial implications of the LEP is included in Appendix 9 Annex 3.
6.6 OTHER SOURCES OF FUNDING
6.6.1 Council Contribution
The Council has agreed to meet the costs of capital works outside school sites that arise as a result of the BSF programme. A sum of £1.5m has been approved which the Council will provide from its own capital resources, to fund expenditure such as traffic works which are required as a condition of planning permission, and which cannot therefore be funded from the funding envelope. This is noted in the Section 151 Officer letter in Appendix 9 Annex 8.
6.6.2 Carbon Reduction Funding
The Council anticipates that five of the school building schemes will exceed 75% new build and could potentially benefit from additional carbon reduction funding.
The allocation of carbon reduction funding is subject to the use of the DCSF carbon calculator and is calculated based on an additional £50 per square metre at January 2007 prices which is to be used to help achieve the energy sustainability targets for essentially new build schools.
The achievement of energy sustainability targets is dependent on designs for schools meeting the carbon reduction criteria. This funding has not been included in the table shown at 6.1. If PfS approve the additional funding for all of the schemes exceeding 75% new build, then the total additional funding would amount to around £1.8m.
No other external funding is anticipated
6.6.3 Land receipts
There will be no major land disposals arising from Derby’s BSF programme, as there are no proposals for closure or amalgamation of any secondary schools. There were two possible land disposals referred to in the SfC2. It is now planned to:
- 70 - • Retain the existing site of St Martins Special School (which will be co-located with Noel Baker Community school) to extend the existing site of the adjacent Southgate PRU (Kingsmead Special School) provision.
• Replace the existing Duffield Road PRU (Kingsmead Special School) on completion of the proposed new PRU (Kingsmead Special School) resource on the former site of Ivy House Special School and the proposed extension to the current provision at Southgate.
The existing Duffield Road PRU (Kingsmead Special School) site will no longer be required and may be available for disposal. This site is small with a value of less than the £300,000 threshold for sharing the sale proceeds with PfS.
Cabinet agreed that any proceeds from the sale of any surplus land arising as direct result of the BSF programme will be ring fenced to the BSF project and either used to fund additional capital expenditure over and above the funding envelope, or to reduce the unitary charge arising from the PFI contracts. This resolution is set out in the Cabinet report on 22 April 2008 which can be found in Appendix 9 Annex 3.
6.7 AFFORDABILITY - CONCLUDING STATEMENT
It is the intention of the Council to contain the capital costs of the BSF programme, whether procured conventionally or under PFI contracts, within the funding envelope provided by PfS save for a sum of £1.5m which the Council will provide from its own capital resources, to fund expenditure outside school sites such as traffic works which are required as a condition of planning permission, and which cannot therefore be funded from the funding envelope.
The Schools Forum and individual schools to be procured under PFI contracts have agreed to the contributions estimated to be necessary to fund the ongoing revenue costs and “affordability gap” of the PFI projects over the lifetime of the contracts.
Schools procured under conventional (Non PFI) contracts have agreed to a proposal for meeting their future lifecycle costs.
The Council understands that the funding envelope for capital expenditure on ICT will be paid over by grant from the DCSF and will contain expenditure within this sum.
All schools to be included in an ICT managed service have agreed to an annual contribution at a level estimated to cover outgoings for an initial period of 5 years.
A letter confirming the commitment of the Authority and showing the signed agreement of the Corporate Director – Resources, the Section 151 officer, is attached at Appendix 9 Annex 8. On this basis the Authority is able to afford the proposed programme.
6.8 ACCOUNTING TREATMENT
The Council’s external financial adviser Deloitte have been asked to conduct an initial qualitative assessment of the likely accounting treatment of the proposed PFI projects.
- 71 - They have issued their “draft initial view report on the Accounting Treatment of the BSF PFI project” in the following terms:
“Based on the information available to us, our initial view after applying the key principles, and considering the qualitative and quantitative indicators and methodologies that make up the accounting guidance in Treasury Taskforce Note No1 – How to Account for PFI Transactions is that the newly created assets in the Project transaction have features that are consistent with the Council accounting for them as off balance sheet.”
A full copy of their report is attached at Appendix 8 Annex 1.
The opinion has been accepted by the Council’s section 151 officer and referred to the Council’s external auditor. Both accept the opinion at this stage as evidenced in the correspondence attached at Appendix 8 Annex 2 and Annex 3.
- 72 - SECTION 7: READINESS TO DELIVER
7.1 PROJECT MANAGEMENT
7.1.1 BSF governance arrangements
The Authority recognises that effective project management is essential to be able to deliver the BSF programme to time and budget. The structure of Derby’s BSF programme management and governance arrangements reflects the 4ps guidance and corporate approach to project management based around the Prince 2 methodology.
We have strong capacity to deliver the programme through robust governance arrangements which include:
a) Sponsorship of the project at the highest level by Council Cabinet, the Corporate Director for Children and Young People and the Assistant Director for Performance and Commissioning. Council Cabinet oversees the programme at the highest level including approval for key decisions relating to the management of the programme, proposals for choice and diversity, the procurement route and affordability of the programme. b) The Children and Young People’s Commission which provides scrutiny to the programme. c) Strategic management of the project by the Corporate Chief Officer Group and the BSF Core Group at Corporate Assistant Director level to facilitate timely decision making. d) A Project Board chaired by the Executive Member for Children and Young People which includes representatives from external education partner agencies.. e) A Core Project Team of 11 including the Head of BSF (project director), Project Manager, Work Stream Leads, Project Accountant and Project Officers who are responsible for the delivery of the project and the Primary Capital Programme. The team is also supported by an external project management consultant who brings experience from an earlier BSF Authority. f) Two external education vision consultants, including the Council’s former Head of Secondary Improvement, to support the development of the School Strategies for Change and implementation of the choice and diversity proposals. g) A wider project team within other Council sections including dedicated technical and legal work stream leads for the programme. h) Strong involvement from schools including the representation of three head teachers on the Project Board and consultation on emerging proposals through the standing Core Head Teacher Group and Secondary Heads Group. i) Experienced, high quality external advisors which support the delivery of the technical, financial, ICT and legal work streams. j) An internal technical and design group including the BSF Senior Project Manager, the Council’s Technical Lead, BSF Project Officer, the Lead Technical Advisor from Faithful and Gould, the Design Manager from Atkins and the programme’s Client Design Adviser.
The management and organisation structure for Derby’s BSF programme is represented below:
- 73 -
7.1.2 BSF Project Board
The BSF Project Board is accountable to the wider Council for successfully planning and procuring the BSF project. It provides strategic direction, makes key decisions and monitors risk.
The Board has been fully operational since February 2007 prior to our formal entrance into the programme in October 2007 following our Remit for Change meeting. The Board is chaired by the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People and membership is drawn from within the Council and partner agencies including three secondary head teachers, the Diocesan authorities, the LSC and trade unions.
The project terms of reference and membership of the Project Board are included in Appendix 24.
7.1.3 BSF Project Team
The Project Team will have delegated Authority from the Project Board to manage the overall project process from inception until contractual close and beyond.
The Core Project Team was recruited early in 2007 following approval of our Readiness to Deliver submission. The main team came into post during summer 2007 prior to our Remit for Change. Additional posts to lead key work streams have been recruited as the programme has progressed either based in the team or in other Council departments.
- 74 - Derby’s programme is forwarded by a number of identified work streams - programme management, education, design and technical, financial, ICT, legal, procurement, human resources and communications. All work streams are led by a full-time, identified internal lead either from within the core project team or a named officer within the Authority. A summary of the key roles in the team is shown below together with a structure chart.
ROLE RESPONSIBLE FOR
Project Owner Overall accountability for the BSF programme. Rita Silvester - Assistant Director, Performance and Commissioning, Children and Young People
Head of Building Schools for the Project direction. Provides the interface Future between the Project Board and the Project Team. Gurmail Nizzer BSF Senior Project Manager Project planning, defining work stream activity and co-ordination of activity, risk Kirsty Alldread management and drawing together of submissions.
- 75 - Project Accountant Based in the Project Team but line managed by Children and Young Jason Coupland People’s Finance. Leading all financial aspects of the programme and management of the external financial advisers.
Education Vision Consultant Leading the development of the Authority’s educational vision and John Young supporting schools to develop their Strategies for Change.
Design Services Manager - Design Based in the Property Services Division. and Technical Lead Responsible for management of technical advisors and to provide Derek Jinks technical input in the options appraisal process and procurement.
Project Lawyer - Legal Lead Based in the Legal Team. Responsible for site issues, LEP, procurement and Clare Wasteney interface with external legal advisors.
ICT Education Lead Officer – ICT Development of ICT managed service Lead within schools including development of output specification and liaison with Claire Easterbrook external ICT advisers.
Policy and Industrial Relations Team Based in Corporate HR. Responsible Leader - Human Resources Lead for managing TUPE implications of ICT managed service, PFI and academies. David Parnham School Place Planning Manager Pupil place planning, statutory processes and Primary Capital Hayley Millward Programme.
BSF Project Officer Supporting the options appraisal process and development of the estates Helen Tilly strategy. Project Support Officers Management and delivery of BSF Consultation and Communications Emma Brooker Strategy. Supporting Project Board and Vacancy - currently being recruited the project’s document management system.
BSF Consultant 0.4 Contracted to support delivery of BSF project. Experience of previous BSF John Smith projects delivering general advice and specialising in finance.
Trust Consultant Contracted to support development of
- 76 - Trust and Federations within Derby Phil Turner schools.
Design Champion Cabinet Member for Children and Young People with a specific interest in Cllr Les Allen design issues.
Client Design Adviser 0.4 Contracted to provide independent expertise and design advice to BSF Jim Sterling Team.
Project Administrators Co-ordination of meetings, agendas, minutes, telephone and other support. Stephanie Moore Vacancy - currently being recruited
Copies of the CVs for key members of the BSF Team are included in Appendix 25.
The Core BSF Team is supported by suitably qualified and experienced external advisers through to financial close. They are:
• Technical - Atkins, Faithful and Gould • Financial - Deloitte • Legal - Eversheds for programme level. Ashfords for independent advice to School Governing Bodies. • ICT - Mouchel • Insurance Advisers - Jardine Lloyd Thompson
Consultants liaise with and are managed by the relevant internal work stream leads to ensure skills and knowledge transfer into the Authority. This will allow us to become more independent post financial close.
We are fully committed to delivering educational transformation through high quality design and have appointed Jim Sterling, from Sheffield Property and Design Services, as our Client Design Adviser to work with BSF programme and our internal technical and design team. Jim is supported by our Design Champion, the Executive Member for Children and Young People and our CABE Enabler, John Mitchell.
We have continued to receive support from 4Ps throughout the BSF process including project team training and Gateway reviews.
7.1.4 Budget and Resource Approvals
As set out in our SfC2 submission, there is currently a three year BSF Delivery Budget of £4.2m in place for expenditure up to the financial close phase of the project in July 2010. This is funded jointly from corporate reserves (£2.1m) and schools budget (£2.1m).
- 77 - This funding is in place to deliver the project to financial close which is scheduled for July 2010. However, it is recognised that there is a need for this funding to continue beyond this date to support the development of the Outline Business Cases and financial close for phase 2 and 3, technical appraisals for these schemes, legal input to the ICT contract and for post contract management, including management of the Local Education Partnership.
In March 2008 Schools Forum agreed in principle to continuing their contribution towards the BSF delivery budget for the schools budget at a rate of £622,000 per year inflated annually until September 2012.
At its meeting on 30 September 2008, Cabinet agreed to review the BSF delivery budget beyond the procurement phase of the project in line with the PfS requirement to ensure authorities involved in BSF establish longer term funding beyond the appointment of a preferred bidder. The BSF Delivery budget is therefore currently being reviewed to ensure funding to identify the exact resources required. A summary of the current budget and an estimate of the likely budgetary requirements to support the development of the phase 2 and 3 schemes, delivery of the programme and management of the LEP is included at Appendix 26. This includes the allocations for internal Project Team and external adviser costs.
Further reports will be sent to Cabinet in due course as part of the spending review for the period 2009 to 2012.
7.1.5 Risk Management
As set out in our SfC2 submission, risk management is integral to the project. The risk management process for Derby’s BSF programme reflects the Council’s corporate approach. It is the Council’s policy to proactively identify, understand and manage the risks inherent in our services and associated with our plans and strategies, so as to encourage responsible, informed risk taking.
Risk identification is a specific responsibility for the Project Board and Project Team members as set out in the terms of reference although anyone involved in the project can identify risks.
The project maintains a comprehensive risk register based on a five stage risk management process to identify, evaluate, manage, monitor and review the risks.
Risks have been identified on an on-going basis throughout the project. Risk workshops have been held at the outset of each project stage with the wider project team and external advisers. Work stream leads are nominated risk owners with the Senior Project Manager retaining the overall responsibility. Risks are reviewed on an on-going basis with any changes in status reported to the Senior Project Manager and the Head of BSF (project director) at regular intervals including fortnightly team meetings and through fortnightly checkpoint reports for each work stream. Where necessary, project management escalates these risks to the Project Board, sets out the impact of these risks and the proposed actions for consideration.
- 78 - The programme risk log is a standing item on the Project Board agenda with updates on the top five risks based on proximity and RAG rating being considered in detail.
The programme risk log covers all risks to the programme including procurement, construction and contractual risks. The project’s risk log is included as Appendix 4 Annex 1 and includes procurement risk analysis, education transformation, demand and affordability risks.
The project also maintains separate site risk logs covering the 14 schemes which draw together the findings from the site investigations, surveys and searches in the programme. The site risk logs draw together risks related to each school project. They have recently been updated to include the findings of site investigations and surveys and will be made available to bidders in the data room.
The ICT Risk Allocation Matrix is based on the Standard LEP model and can be found in Appendix 4 Annex 2.
7.1.5 Gateway Review 0 and 1
The programme engaged in the non-mandatory Gateway 0 review in March 2008 which found that Derby’s programme has been well planned and resourced to date with strong project management and a very capable and highly motivated team. The report indicates that timescales have been adhered to, risks are carefully reviewed and managed and all of this has resulted in a sense of confidence in the management of the programme. This is within the context of a Council which is 4* and ‘improving well’ and CYP services judged in the JAR to be good, with good capacity to improve.
In line with the requirements for the delivery of BSF projects, the programme recently engaged in the Gateway 1 review from 23 to 25 September 2008. This is to provide an independent assessment of our OBC.
The review found that the programme continues to be well managed and resourced and that timescales continue to be adhered to. The report concluded that “all of this has resulted in a sense of confidence in the management of the programme.” The programme overall was judged to have an amber rating. All recommendations made by the Gateway Review panel will be actioned prior to procurement.
7.2 PROCUREMENT STRATEGY
7.2.1 Procurement scope
As set out in our SfC2 submission, we will be procuring a Local Education Partnership (LEP) to deliver our BSF programme and to procure an integrated managed service to deliver ICT to schools. This approach has been agreed by Cabinet on 18 March 2008.
The Council has undertaken a formal scoping options appraisal to identify any wider services to be included in the LEP. This included a number of cross department workshops with senior officers to identify the advantages and disadvantages of including particular services other than those directly relating to the BSF programme.
- 79 - This included discussion on the services included in LEPs already in existence in earlier BSF authorities.
There have also been detailed LEP discussions with Partnerships for Schools (PfS).
At its meeting on 30 September 2008, Cabinet agreed that Derby’s Local Education Partnership (LEP) will be given exclusivity for the provision of:
• Building Schools for the Future (BSF) funded capital works to schools within the BSF programme procured under both Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Design and Build (D and B) contracts. • Maintenance and facilities management (FM) services for schools procured under the BSF PFI contracts. • A managed service to deliver Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the schools within the BSF programme (including those which are not subject to BSF funded capital works).
This includes the sixth form centre at the proposed academy at Sinfin Community School.
In addition, the LEP might be invited to carry out the following services (but will not be granted exclusivity):
• Capital works funded by the Primary Capital Investment Programme • Non BSF funded works on BSF school sites. • The provision of ICT services to primary schools.
A copy of the Cabinet paper is contained in Appendix 9 Annex 3. The OJEU notice has been drafted in line with these approvals and a copy can be found in Appendix 10.
7.2.2 Procurement timeline
The submission deadline for our Outline Business Case of 10 October 2008 drives the scheduling of our procurement process. The planning for procurement is based on an assumption that we will receive approval for our OBC in early/mid December 2008. The target date to publish our OJEU notice for the sample schemes is Friday 9 January 2009 and we continue to plan for procurement on this basis.
To support this, the BSF Team and our external advisers are currently producing the relevant procurement documentation alongside the development of the OBC to allow sufficient time for PfS approval before our OJEU publication date. The documents are based on the recently revised PfS standard documents with only minor variations to reflect project specific issues. This is in line with the Cabinet’s commitment to adopt standard documents at its meeting on 22 April 2008 and set out in our SfC2 submission. The timetable for submission of procurement documents has been agreed with our PfS Director and is as follows:
- 80 -
DOCUMENT PfS SUBMISSION DEADLINE PQQ documents OJEU Notice 10 October 2008 - with OBC Descriptive Document 5 December 2008 PQQ Qualification Questionnaire 5 December 2008 PQQ Evaluation Matrix 5 December 2008 IPD documents Output Specification 5 December 2008 Design and Build Contracts 5 December 2008 Strategic Partnering Agreement 5 December 2008 Shareholders Agreement 5 December 2008 PFI Contract 5 December 2008 PFI Payment Mechanism 5 December 2008 ICT Services Contract 5 December 2008 ICT Payment Mechanism 5 December 2008 ICT Output Specification 10 October 2008 - with OBC Funders Direct Agreement 5 December 2008 Management Services Agreement 5 December 2008 Invitation to Participate in Dialogue 5 December 2008
The BSF Project Board agreed to adopt the revised procurement process at its meeting on 9 June 2008. The project plan and resources are based on this revised guidance taking into account the scheduling of significant school holidays which may impact on our engagement with schools. The timetable for procurement is set out below. The timeline flows from the target publication date for our OJEU notice of 9 January 2009. Based on target OJEU date of 9 January 2009, we anticipate that we will reach financial close in July 2010. Construction is scheduled to commence later that month on the sample schemes.
Milestones Dates
DEVELOPMENT PHASE Remit for Change 26 October 2007 Strategy for Change Part 1 19 December 2007 Strategy for Change Part 2 9 May 2008 Soft Market Testing Event 4 July 2008 Outline Business Case 10 October 2008 Bidders Day 2 December 2008 Procurement documentation submission 5 December 2008 PROCUREMENT PHASE Pre-qualification period Issue of Official Journal of European Union (OJEU) 9 January 2009 Notice to prospective bidders Bidders Day - sample school visits Date to be confirmed PQQ responses received 20 February 2009 PQQ shortlist 20 March 2009 Dialogue Phase 1
- 81 - Issue Invitation to Participate in Dialogue (IPD1) to three 23 March 2009 bidders IPD submissions June 2009 Evaluation June/July 2009 De-select to two bidders August 2009 Dialogue Phase 2 Close of dialogue November 2009 Final Tender Period Issue Invitation to Submit Final Bids (ITSFB) to November 2009 remaining two bidders Receipt of final bids December 2009 Evaluation December/January 2010 Selection of Preferred Bidder February 2010 Close period Financial close for sample schemes July 2010 CONSTRUCTION PHASE Construction start for sample schemes - Noel-Baker St July 2010 Martins and Derby Moor Financial close for Phase 1b scheme - Lees Brook December 2010 Construction start for Phase 1b scheme - Lees Brook January 2011 Construction start for Phase 2 schemes - Bemrose, July 2011 Littleover, Saint Benedict, St Clares, Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) - part 1 Completion of sample scheme - Noel-Baker St Martins August 2012 and Derby Moor Completion of Phase 1b scheme - Lees Brook August 2012 Construction start for Phase 3 schemes - Chellaston, July 2012 Murray Park, West Park, Woodlands, St Andrews, Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) - part 2 Completion of Phase 2 schemes - Bemrose, Littleover, August 2013 Saint Benedict, St Clares, Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) - part 1 Completion of Phase 3 schemes - Chellaston, Murray August 2014 Park, West Park, Woodlands, St Andrews, Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) - part 2
We propose to progress a further scheme, Lees Brook Community Sports College, to be completed alongside the sample schemes in Phase 1b. Lees Brook is the second PFI new build project in Derby’s programme which because of, condition issues needs to be addressed early in the programme. The proposal is that design work on the Lees Brook scheme will start as soon as possible after the preferred bidder is selected to ensure that work will start on site at the earliest opportunity. Lees Brook will be subject to a separate financial close, anticipated December 2010, and PFI contract. As the construction period for Lees Brook is significantly shorter than for the two sample schemes, Lees Brook will be completed at the same time as the sample schools. This proposal was tested with potential bidders at our soft market testing sessions, and they indicated that the proposal would be acceptable to the market.
- 82 - 7.2.3 Soft market testing
The BSF Team has begun to engage with the market to raise awareness of Derby’s programme and our procurement timeline.
Our Soft Market Testing event took place on Tuesday 8 July 2008. The event provided potential bidders including private sector construction, ICT companies and investment banks, with an opportunity to find out more about Derby BSF programme. The event set out a high level overview of the programme and potential schemes. The event was advertised through a Prior Information Notice in the European Journal.
We had a total of 125 attendees on the day and received excellent feedback. A lot of interest was expressed in Derby’s BSF programme resulting in thirteen one to one follow up sessions held on 16, 17, 18 and 21 July and 21 and 22 August 2008. Further sessions with additional companies are scheduled in the near future. Appendix 27 summarises the organisations that have engaged with Derby’s programme.
We are arranging a further Bidders Day for 2 December 2008. This will be a further opportunity for potential bidders to find out more about Derby’s BSF programme before we launch the OJEU on 9 January 2009.
A number of potential bidders have requested the opportunity to visit sample schools and meet the design team, ICT advisors and the schools internal BSF team. The BSF Team are looking to schedule in these opportunities with Noel-Baker/St Martins and Derby Moor in January 2009 to coincide with the publication of the OJEU notice.
7.2.4 Management of the procurement
In the Authority’s 2007 Corporate Assessment, the Audit Commission found that the Council has a sound approach to procurement. The Council already has considerable experience in successfully procuring and delivering major education capital schemes in recent year including:
• a £44 million Grouped Schools PFI programme for the replacement of two secondary schools and three primary schools in the city which was delivered on time and to budget; • three new build schools funded through successful Targeted Capital bids; and • a BSF Pathfinder School.
In addition, the Council has experience in procuring major contracts through Competitive Dialogue including the highway term maintenance contract, the current Corporate ICT FM contract and housing PFI schemes. We are drawing on this experience and the guidance from our colleagues in the Corporate Procurement Team, PfS and our external legal advisers to structure and manage the evaluation and selection for the BSF programme.
The BSF Project Team has delegated Authority to manage the procurement process and specifically:
- 83 - • drafting procurement documents using PfS templates • evaluating bids from shortlisted bidders • recommending a preferred bidder to Project Board • continuing negotiations to financial Close
In line with the terms of reference, the BSF Core Project Team will evaluate the initial submissions making recommendations to the Project Board for selection of the pre- qualified procurement long-list (if applicable). The revised procurement process includes a more comprehensive pre-qualification process with the aim of de-selecting to a ‘long-list ‘of three or four bidders prior to dialogue. We propose to use site visits and interviews at this stage to help us de-select to three bidders.
The Council is keen to ensure a representative cross section of Council stakeholders are involved in the dialogue and evaluation process. We are in discussions with PfS and our external legal advisers on how to structure the evaluation teams. There are a number of options being considered for structuring the evaluation teams but it is likely that this will be advanced through individual work streams and a combination of a number of work streams as necessary. At this early stage, we anticipate that we will adopt a combination of these dependent on the focus of the dialogue phase to ensure that we test bids and solutions rigorously at the appropriate stage.
The membership of these groups will come from a variety of sources including both sample and non-sample schools, external advisers, internal BSF Team leads and Corporate experts from relevant areas such as Corporate ICT.
A more detailed plan for the evaluation of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) and dialogue phases is being drawn together for consideration by the Project Board at its meeting on 1 December 2008. This is being drawn together with will include recommendations for the structure and membership of the evaluation groups.
The evaluation process will be supported by contract evaluation software to ensure consistency. Our external legal advisers will also run training for evaluation team representatives.
7.3 CONSULTATION AND STATUTORY APPROVALS
The Council has consulted extensively on its BSF proposals throughout the process to ensure that the programme takes account of local priorities and strategic concerns balanced against the need for the proposals to be deliverable.
The BSF Team have worked closely with internal services such as Planning and Highways and with external partner agencies such as Sport England.
7.3.1 Planning
The Council’s Head of Development Control is an active member of the Project Board and has ensured that the appropriate linkages were made when the initial proposals were being developed. Through this dialogue, the proposals have been refined so that Development Control was able to confirm that the proposals were likely to be acceptable in planning terms.
- 84 -
In line with the requirement to secure a level of planning comfort for each scheme in the wave, the BSF Team and the programme’s technical advisors have worked with the Council’s Development Control Team to identify the most appropriate level of planning comfort for each scheme in Derby’s BSF programme. At the time of our OBC submission, we have secured an appropriate level of comfort for all schools in Derby’s programme apart from Lees Brook Sports College which will be considered by Planning Control on 16 October 2008 with the prior agreement of our PfS Director. Letters of comfort for Bemrose, Sinfin and the Pupil Referral Unit (Kingsmead Special School) will be received on 20 October 2008.
Our technical advisors submitted Outline Planning Permission applications for both sample schemes - Noel-Baker/St Martins and Derby Moor. The BSF Team supported by our technical advisors held public exhibitions at the two sample scheme sites - Noel-Baker and Derby Moor - on 11 and 12 June 2008. This gave students, parents and residents an opportunity to find out more about the proposals and view the plans. The comments received at both events were positive and incorporated into the Outline Planning Permissions (OPP) submissions.
Planning Control approved the proposals for Noel-Baker/St Martins re-build scheme at its meeting on 4 September 2008. OPP for the Derby Moor scheme was approved by Planning Control on 25 September 2008.
We are also seeking OPP for the Phase 1b scheme, Lees Brook, as we are working this proposal up alongside the sample schemes so that it can be built in a similar time frame. Feedback from residents at a public exhibition on the proposals was also positive and the OPP application for Lees Brook will be considered by Planning Control at its meeting on 16 October 2008 shortly following the submission of our OBC. This approach has been agreed by our PfS Director to allow the Authority to schedule consideration of the schemes by Planning Control.
The Council’s Development Control advised that the proposals for all other schemes would only require Letters of Comfort; level 3 of planning comfort as set out in the Supplementary Clarification on OBC Guidance published January 2008. This is because we are proposing to carry out works on sites that are already occupied by the schools and the proposals are considered to be a low planning risk.
Our technical advisors submitted the proposals for all other schemes in the programme to Development Control in July and August 2008 and we have secured letters of comfort for the schemes set out below. These have been signed by the Council’s Head of Development Control and Land Searches whose role encompasses that of Chief Planning Officer.
The table sets out the relevant levels of planning permission for all schools in the programme. Copies of the relevant permissions can be found in Appendix 9. Annex 1.
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School Level of Planning Date received Derby Moor Outline Planning Permission 25 September 2008 Noel-Baker/St Martins Outline Planning Permission 4 September 2008 Lees Brook Outline Planning Permission To be considered on 16 October 2008 Bemrose Letter of Comfort Response to be received 20 October 2008 Littleover Letter of Comfort 10 September 2008 Saint Benedict Letter of Comfort 10 September 2008 St Clare’s Letter of Comfort 5 August 2008 Chellaston Letter of Comfort 5 August 2008 Murray Park Letter of Comfort 11 September 2008 West Park Letter of Comfort 8 September 2008 Woodlands Letter of Comfort 4 August 2008 St Andrew’s Letter of Comfort 8 September 2008 Pupil Referral Unit Letter of Comfort Response to be received (Kingsmead Special 20 October 2008 School) Sinfin Letter of Comfort Response to be received 20 October 2008
The engagement with planners will continue throughout the procurement process.
Development Control has advised us that the risk of a judicial review on the full planning applications is low so we anticipate that the BSF programme will retain the risk. The final decision for this will be taken by Project Board when they approve the procurement proposals in December 2008.
7.3.2 Sport England
Sport England and the Derbyshire Sport, the county sports partnership, are drawn into the process through out BSF Sports and PE Stakeholder Group. The Group has met on a regular basis throughout the project operating at both the strategic and project level. The Group has liaised with the national governing bodies for all major sports through the county sports partnership and have been active in shaping our SfC and OBC submissions.
The Stakeholder Group also supported the options appraisal process at school level conducting an audit of existing sports provision in schools, along with data on the physical activity levels of young people in different areas of the city. This information was used to inform the options appraisal process and improvements to facilities at these schools. Any shortfalls in sports accommodation identified were incorporated into the BSF preferred options for the schools.
The group has also carried out a mapping exercise, looking at existing provision in schools and at other council and private facilities alongside data on the physical activity levels of both adults and young people in different areas of the city. As a result of this, several schools have been identified as strategically important for increasing
- 86 - community use and physical activity, due to low levels of physical activity and poor facilities in their local areas. This information was used identify improvements to sports facilities at these schools which have again been factored into the BSF preferred options.
The Council’s Sport and Leisure Department has also worked with the sample and phase 1b schools to support them to articulate their aspirations for sports facilities and ensure that opportunities for physical activity are enhanced in the final schemes. This has also included developing design standards for sports to support the evaluation. Following on from this, the Council’s PE and School Sports Department will be involved in the Design Quality Indicators (DQI) workshops for the sample schools and are involved in supporting the development of the output specifications.
There have been on-going discussions with Sport England as the proposals for each school progressed. However, as there are no disposals of school playing fields identified there are no formal requirements for Section 77 approvals. Consultation with Sport England prior to the planning submissions indicated that all proposals were acceptable. In informal feedback Sport England noted that the programme prioritised retaining or replacing playing fields.
Derby’s BSF programme continues to gain value from the active involvement of the BSF Sports and PE Stakeholder Group which will continue to meet throughout the procurement process. It is envisaged that this group will be drawn into the evaluation of designs to ensure that sport and physical activity are embedded in the schemes.
7.3.3 Statutory Procedures
Work is taking place with regard to statutory procedures and consultation for our sample schools and our phase 1b school. The necessary statutory procedures for other schools in the programme will take place at a later stage to tie in with later construction phases and this has been agreed with Partnerships for Schools.
One of the reasons for this approach is that, although we have agreement on pupil numbers, we wish to review these regularly and this could impact on whether statutory procedures are required in terms of school expansions. There is also the issue that if consultation is carried out now for schools in later phases, we will not be consulting with parents and pupils who will be directly affected by the proposals as implementation will not take place until three or four years time. It is also possible that head Teachers and governors could change prior to implementation.
7.3.4 Sample Schools
Changes to Enhanced Resource Provision - A statutory procedure is required in relation to adding, removing or changing, provision reserved for pupils with special educational needs at mainstream schools. Lees Brook Community Sports College, our phase 1b school, requires a statutory procedure as we are proposing to increase provision from 24 places to 30 places for pupils with a range of learning difficulties.
Changes to Special School Numbers - A statutory process is required for an increase in the number of pupils by 10% or more or 20 pupils (whichever is the lesser).
- 87 - A statutory process is required for St Martins Special School which currently has 57 pupils on roll (January 2008 PLASC). The proposal is to increase the number of pupil places available to 80.
No further statutory processes are required for the sample schemes. The timetable for carrying out the consultation for our sample schools and phase 1b school is set out below:
• Stage • Estimated completion by
• Drafting of informal consultation • September/October 2008 documents including approval by each school’s governing body and approval to go out to consultation from Cabinet Lead Member for Children and Young People
• Consultation period (6 weeks) • 3 November to 15 December 2008
• Decision by Cabinet to publish Statutory • 13 January 2008 Notice
• Publication in Derby Evening Telegraph • 21 January 2008 – must be in term time.
• Representation Period • Six weeks for changes to ER/SEN places at Lees Brook and St Martins.
• End of representation period • 4 March 2008
• Decision by Director if no objections • April 2009 received
• Decision by Cabinet if objections • 21 April 2009 received
We recognise that a statutory procedure and consultation will be required to close Sinfin Community School in order to reopen it as an Academy. The anticipated timescale for reopening the school as an Academy is September 2009 and the statutory consultation for the proposal to close the school will begin in winter this year.
The re-location of St Martins Special School to the Noel-Baker School site did not require a statutory consultation as the Noel-Baker site is less than two miles away from the St Martins current site ‘as the crow flies’. Although there was no legal obligation for the Council to undergo a statutory consultation procedure, it was considered appropriate to seek the views on this with stakeholders. A consultation document was circulated to the parents, staff and governors of each school as well as
- 88 - trade unions and ward councillors. At its meeting on 8 July 2008, Council Cabinet approved the proposal to move St Martins Special School to a new building co-located on the grounds of Noel-Baker Community School and Language College. A copy of the Cabinet report is attached in Appendix 9 Annex 3.
7.3.5 Phase 2 and 3 Schools
We anticipate that for phase 2 and 3, the following schools will require statutory procedures/consultation based on school expansions or changes to enhanced resource provision:
Phase 2 Schools - Construction at phase 2 schools is scheduled to commence in 2011 and are scheduled to open in 2013. Statutory procedures for the following schools will be required in 2009:
• Bemrose (expansion) • Littleover (expansion) • St Benedict (expansion)
Phase 3 Schools - Construction at phase 2 schools is scheduled to commence in 2012 and are scheduled to open in 2014. Statutory procedures for the following schools will be required in 2010:
• Chellaston (expansion) • Woodlands (enhanced resource places)
This approach for statutory consultations has been agreed with our PfS Director and has been factored into the project plan. There are identified resources within the BSF Team to support this work.
7.4 SPONSOR AND SCHOOL COMMITMENT
As set out in our SfC2 submission, the Council has prioritised the active engagement of stakeholders throughout the process.
Our Communication and Consultation Strategy was included in our SfC2 submission which sets out how the Council has consulted with key stakeholders through the governance structures of the project and other approaches.
Examples of engagement undertaken include:
• Derby school visits - students hosted visits to recent new build schools in the city. • Student creative involvement - students have been involved in many ways including school productions about their school of the future, others created photographic images of what they hoped to keep and lose from the existing school. In several schools pupils attempted to design and produce models of their ideal schools. • School assemblies - a number of school assemblies have touched on the possibilities of schools for the future and many PSHE lessons have been devoted to discussions.
- 89 - • BSF information events - the BSF team have held informal drop-in sessions at all Phase 1 schools where local residents and parents were given the opportunity to view the initial plans for the schools before outline planning applications are made. • Web site / electronic communication - we have set up dedicated web pages for Derby’s BSF programme on the Council’s site www.derby.gov.uk/BSF. • BSF newsletter - we have established a dedicated quarterly newsletter about the programme which is distributed widely to all stakeholders.
The BSF programme is embedded at the highest level of the Council as evidenced with member and chief officer representation at the Project Board and through the BSF Core Group.
The strong relationship between schools and the Council has been integral in shaping the programme and their own schemes. Schools have been involved at all levels of the process including through representation on the Project Board and the ICT Working Group and through consideration of proposals at a formative stage by Core Head Teacher Group, Secondary Heads Cluster Group and the Schools Forum.
School commitment to the project is evidenced through letters of commitment to the ICT managed service (all schools), FM services (PFI schools) and Dedicated Schools Grant contributions to meet the affordability gap for the PFI schemes. Copies of the standard letters and templates are included in Appendix 9.5, 9.6 and 9.7.
- 90 - SECTION 8: LEADING AND MANAGING CHANGE
8.1 CHANGE MANAGEMENT
This summary plan contained in Appendix 23 Annex 1 briefly outlines the main elements in our agenda for change.
If we are to transform education in Derby, we know we must work together with clear in a partnership involving the LA, Schools and wider stakeholders (the LSC, Derby College, Derby University, Primary Care Trusts, sports bodies and community organisations etc). We acknowledge that the scale of the proposed change is greater than any previous challenge faced by the city’s educationalists. We believe that to implement BSF effectively we must emphasise professional development and workforce reform in order to improve teaching and learning, re-draw the curriculum and benefit from the impact of enhanced ICT provision.
Change Management will be led from the centre, but be focused primarily on the schools in order to:
• Ensure we have the overall capacity to effect transformation and secure effective co-ordination • Develop a Managed Service for ICT • Develop Choice and Diversity through support process of establishing Trusts • Ensure schools and LA have sufficient capacity to maintain existing operations through a time of change • Ensure effective implementation of personalised learning • Provide personnel Support for school staff who may be affected by re-structuring • Support Curriculum reform • Secure the LA’s Locality Strategy
We are aware that effecting a city-wide major transformation in educational provision and outcomes will make great demands upon the capacities of the LA and individual schools to effectively manage change.
Each individual school has identified the main management challenges and outlined the ways in which these will be met. These are summarised in the School Strategies for Change and reflect the differing scales of activity required in each case.
The authority has responded to the individual demands and support needs identified by schools by constructing a Change Management Plan which is attached as Appendix 23 Annex 1. The plan summarises the ways in which the LA will deploy existing and additional resources to address the key transformation objectives.
A number of key transformation objectives have been identified set out in Section 8.2 below.
- 91 - 8.2 TRANSFORMATION OBJECTIVES
8.2.1 Ensure overall capacity to effect transformation and secure effective co- ordination.
The LA must ensure that it has identified sufficient capacity to give the leadership, support and challenge required to support schools in their transformations. We also must invest time and resources in training and awareness raising among LA staff and other agencies working with schools whose capacity to interact successfully in the future would otherwise be limited.
In order to secure our aims it is vital that schools recruit and retain high-quality staff. We will keep recruitment and retention under review and initiate appropriate action if required.
8.2.2 Develop a Managed Service for ICT
All School Strategies for Change highlight the major transforming potential of the proposed investment in ICT. The LA recognise the need for an effective change management strategy which supports and develops school leaders at all levels and which equips all staff to deliver the enhanced pedagogy and pupil support envisaged. After intensive dialogue an initial strategy has been developed by our ICT consultants, Mouchel. This can be found in Section 4.13
In addition to the pedagogical benefits, the ICT investment will enable streamlining of administrative processes and the gains to be made from an increasingly data-rich environment will necessitate a review of many of our policies and practices. This will be incorporated into our reviewing cycle and help determine our continuing professional development dialogue over the next few years. Our workforce will undertake appropriate training to enable us to maximise the effect of ICT developments through BSF.
8.2.3 Develop Choice and Diversity through support process of establishing Trusts
Most Derby schools are developing ideas and proposals to acquire Trust status. Sinfin Community School is in the process of consulting on becoming an academy. The LA has been proactive in supporting schools in their plans and is aware of the short-term issues involved in concluding the required processes.
8.2.4 Ensure schools and Authority has sufficient capacity to maintain existing operations
Experience from our recent PFI builds at da Vinci and Merrill Colleges, and the BSF Pilot at Sinfin School have made us well-aware of the constraints and potential for disruption to current pupils while building takes place. We are also aware of the pressure that a major development can place upon staff and, in particular senior managers. We have highlighted in our plan the need for schools to have sufficient capacity to pre-plan, monitor and deliver effective education on their sites while work is being undertaken.
- 92 - As project leaders, we will try to balance the need to challenge our schools to achieve the best through BSF with the support necessary for them to respond without weakening the existing provision.
We recognise that in order to transform learning further and to fully benefit from the new technology provided through BSF there will need to be a phased and resourced programme of continuous professional development and support for our workforce. This will need to be organised in such a way that it does not have a negative impact on existing students. We will work together with our schools and all other stakeholders to develop a full and appropriate response to the change management implications of the BSF programme.
8.2.5 Ensure effective implementation of personalised learning
Along with ICT, personalised learning offers the greatest potential to effect a step- change improvement in standards. The LA believes that the strong National Curriculum networks and high quality co-ordination offered through our Secondary National Strategy Team and School Improvement personnel will continue to contribute greatly to the roll-out of the necessary training.
8.2.6 Support for Curriculum reform
Examination of the School Strategies for Change reveals that there will be radical development of curriculum offers pre and post-16. This will pose numerous issues, including the need to re-model existing departments, conduct intensive training, allow time for planning and resources development.
BSF will be the catalyst for radical curriculum development and we are aware that this has massive implications for CPD. We will work closely with our schools in any national roll-out of training to ensure that our staff are thoroughly prepared for the delivery of new courses at all key stages.
8.2.7 Secure Authority Locality Strategy
All schools wish to further their interaction with their local communities, most to the point of becoming hubs for local learning. They all wish to provide fast and easy access to support services and to work more effectively with agencies that support vulnerable groups of young people. The LA recognises that great deal of work needs to be done in order to match up with the aspirations of the schools.
8.2.8 Supporting Schools in Consulting Stakeholders
Our Strategy for Change (SfC) has been the product of the most extensive school partnership exercise ever conducted in Derby. The city-wide vision has been developed through our thriving secondary Education Improvement Partnership which encompasses all mainstream and special schools, working together with the LA. Individual school visions show a high quotient of partnership endeavour while preserving the specific characteristics that make for a unique ethos.
- 93 - Schools have been given support and stimulus to help ensure their individual strategies for change are based upon the best current practice and future visioning.
Support has come from the attachment of an Education Lead Consultant who has worked with each school at each phase to develop ideas that are complimentary to the broader aims of BSF.
Each school was enrolled upon a five day programme run by The National College for School Leadership enabling school senior leaders to work in teams alongside their peers from other schools in order to address and develop key perspectives.
Specific support was made available to envision ICT aspirations, as documented in Section 4.
There was also a great deal of specific help in encouraging schools and their governing bodies in considering their options for Choice and Diversity. This was provided through additional consultancy services from an expert in developing Trusts and Federations. The LA also held a one-day event for all schools at which there was input from existing Trust schools and national associations.
The development of future curricula and other aspects of Personalised Learning was informed by the interaction between schools and the LA’s School Improvement and National Strategies Teams. School Improvement Partners were involved in ensuring that schools addressed priorities for improvement that were already identified in their dialogues.
The sample schools benefited from sharing the results of the consultation processes of other schools in Derby, each of which used similar, but individual processes to ascertain the views of stakeholders.
Each school established a team to develop the School Strategy for Change. Teams were constructed in different ways - for example St Clare’s advertised for a balanced group representing teachers, teacher support staff, governors and parents. That team started with a blank sheet of paper; in other schools draft visions were constructed by a small team, before being shared with the wider community for debate and discussion.
Visits to other schools were often part of the agenda - for instance da Vinci pupils hosted a visit to their newly-opened PFI buildings by young people from Saint Benedict where they toured the site and debated the pros and cons of new designs.
Students were involved in many ways: Saint Benedict pupils wrote a play about the school of the future and videoed the production. At Bemrose, students discussed proposals in forms and through the Student Council, leading to models of ideal schools and photographic images of what they hoped to keep and lose from the existing school.
In several schools pupils attempted to draw or design their ideal schools and there were even some ambitious attempts to produce cardboard models.
- 94 - Numerous assemblies have touched on the possibilities of schools for the future and many PSHE lessons have been devoted to discussion.
School departments continue to be involved in practical sessions about particular aspects of design and where they would be best located in terms of developing themed activities with other subjects.
Consultation with the wider school community continues to take place as architects drawings are produced. For instance, Derby Moor entered into a wide written consultation procedure with all segments of the school’s community.
The consultation processes undertaken by the schools have been mirrored by an extensive debate within the authority and with external partners.
- 95 -