SUMMARY OF REPORT CONTENTS

AMA Research has recently published the 4th Edition of its Building Schools for the Future Report, focusing specifically on the coalition government’s recent announcement to end the 6-year, £55bn Programme in its current form and review all capital spending plans within the education sector.

Launched by the previous Labour government in 2003 and with a final investment of over £55 billion, the programme aimed to transform the entire secondary school estate. At the time of its cancellation in July 2010, BSF had so far delivered 186 new build schools across England. However, the programme represented one third of total capital spending in education and had been beset by delays and procurement problems.

With a major review into the future of schools’ capital expenditure expected to report by the end of the year, the new coalition government is not only aiming to reduce public sector spending - the cancellation of BSF is expected to save the government around £5 billion – but also to streamline the process of future building work within the education sector and ensure that money is not wasted on bureaucratic procurement processes, as was deemed to be the case with BSF.

The report also assesses the full implications for contractors and the wider supply chain of the cancellation of BSF and the opportunities for future building work presented by the ‘free’ schools concept and the progression of the academies’ programme – the main themes of the coalition’s education policy. Going forward, the focus within the education sector is likely to be on smaller packages of work than that seen under BSF, with a return to refurbishments rather than new-builds.

Information for this report has been collated from a wide range of sources including Government Publications, company literature and the Internet. In addition, our research background in related construction and building sectors has been used to provide a basis of understanding of the BSF Programme and key factors influencing trends and future prospects within the education sector.

Analysis of market developments has been based upon both quantitative and qualitative assessments of both primary and secondary source data. As with many of the renewable technologies, estimating the size of the UK market is difficult since there are no official or reliable statistics quantifying either the number of installations to date, or the annual sales of biomass boilers / installations into both the domestic and non domestic sectors. Industry sources indicate that in 2009 sales were estimated at around 1,100 – 1,300 residential, commercial and industrial installations.