Will the EFA freeze SMEs out of £6 billion of schools work?
A highly critical report has found that the process used by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) to tender school building and maintenance work is unacceptably skewed, to the disadvantage of SMEs.
The National Federation of Builders, Project Compass CIC and DeNové gathered evidence that found:
- no SME or regional contractors were awarded contracts in five out of the six available regions;
- over half (53.5%) of all the contract lots went to just six firms which also won work at national level.
Paul Bogle, head of policy and research at the National Federation of Builders, said: “The NFB engages early with organisations like the EFA to explain how seemingly straightforward questions create unnecessary barriers to competition. The response we received from the EFA was positive – and yet the barriers remain.”
The report comes shortly after the announcement that £6 billion of funding would be available for upgrading and maintaining schools, £4 billion of which would be allocated outside the Priority Schools Building Programme which is administered by the EFA.
Paul Bogle continued: “Schools are at the heart of their communities. SMEs have their communities at heart, employing, training and spending locally. This new stream of funding should be taken from the EFA and administered by local authorities which are more keenly aware of local need and, in many instances, help schools develop skills for their funding bids. This is why our report recommends that projects with a value below £5 million should be administered by a local authority and not the EFA.”
Copies of the report are available from the NFB website.
