The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme represents the biggest investment in school buildings ever undertaken. The aim is to rebuild or renew nearly every secondary school in England. As part of all BSF procurements, local authorities require private sector partners to develop proposals explaining how investment in physical infrastructure and ICT will also facilitate wider community benefits. Carillion commissioned FSquared to support them in the development of proposals to facilitate wider community benefit for Nottingham BSF.

Nottingham City Council’s vision for the project was that schools should play a key role at the heart of their communities. The development of Extended Schools was well advanced in Nottingham, but barriers to community use had been identified, including opening costs, security concerns of headteachers and additional burdens on school caretakers. 

In response to these issues we developed a not for profit approach to promote, develop and manage community use of school facilities. The Schools 4 model proposed setting up a social enterprise that would:

• Employ a member of staff to co-ordinate community use on a number of school sites


• Invest in the school estate by reinvesting surpluses and by levering in additional grant funding.


• Ensure affordable access to schools by:
  
  
  1. Creating a mix of hire rates – using commercial rates to subsidise lower community rates from a portfolio of schools
  2. Achieving operational economies of scale
  3. Brokering partnership arrangements with statutory service providers
  4. Developing locally specific activity programmes
  
  
  The Benefits
  
  During the bidding phase FSquared presented the idea to the Council and the schools and it was warmly received. In response to this we developed an illustrative business plan which showed how the organisation could work financially and operationally and the benefits of the approach for the schools, local communities and the wider area. We recognised that this was just the first step – the idea had to be developed in partnership by the Council, the private sector partner and other key stakeholders, and this could only be achieved at preferred bidder stage. Therefore the business plan included an Implementation Plan which set out the various steps that would need to be undertaken to take the idea forwards.
  
  The first stage was to establish a time-limited working group involving all key stakeholders to explore the proposals further. Following the appointment of Inspiredspaces as preferred bidder, a joint Working Group defined how the company will re-invest in schools; agreed a mechanism to roll out the not-for-profit linked to current Extended Schools development; and commenced market testing of the approach.
  
  
  The next stage will be to develop a full financial feasibility study which will be reviewed by the Council and Inspiredspaces. The aim is that, subject to a satisfactory assessment of financial viability, the company will be set up and operational with its member of staff in post by September 2009.
  
  FSquared shaped the proposals for Schools 4 so that they would benefit all stakeholders – the schools, the community and the Council. In addition to affordable access, benefits include:
  
  
  • Better facilities for schools and communities through grant funding, partnership opportunities and reinvestment of surpluses
  
  
  • Reduced management and administration burden for schools
  
  
  • Local people have a single point of contact for community use.
  
  
  • Barriers between schools, parents and the local community are broken down – helping to meet community cohesion objectives
  
  
  • A coordinated approach whereby schools with more profitable facilities subsidise community use at other schools such as primary schools
  
  
  Once implemented, our proposals will have multiple benefits for the wider communities in Nottingham.