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Boring on about BSF
publication date: Mar 1, 2007
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author/source: Richard Taylor
Tim Byles’ speech at BSEC was mostly spin about ‘the government’s flagship capital investment programme’ and P4S’s role in delivering it. He focused on the ‘four pillars’ he thinks are crucial to BSF’s success:
When he started dropping statistics, we suspect he hoped to impress his audience - companies chasing BSF work - with how much money was being spent. The headline figure of £45bn is huge and in the 15-20 year horizon of BSF this works out at £2.25-3bn per year. Fantastic, except that in the three years since BSF kicked off with its Pathfinders, Waves and LEPs, so far there are just six signed projects worth £1.2bn. With eight more close to signing there might be another £1.6bn in the pipeline pushing the total spend towards £2.8bn. Since it started, BSF should in theory, if money was to be evenly allocated, have spent between £6.75-£9bn. We wonder whether Chancellor Gordon Brown will allow the difference (£3.96 to £6.2bn) to rollover for future spending or force the DfES to forgo it to achieve the £4.3bn of efficiency savings mandated by the Gershorn report? In his Pre Budget Report the Chancellor specifically mentioned the Office of Government Commerce report that highlighted the DfES as the government department contributing the least savings. If the Chancellor gets serious about forcing departments to make the savings set out in his speech then the DfES and P4S could be in for a nasty shock, but with an accession and election on the horizon we doubt his commitment to ‘Excellence, excellence and excellence’ makes this politically viable. Good news for those companies hoping to win profitable slices of the £45bn, but little comfort to the students currently in crumbling schools. |