Introduction progressing with modernisation

This KPMG Infrastructure Spotlight Report 1 presents analysis into the use of PFI in school building and its impact on educational outcomes in England.

The main findings of this 2009 edition are:

•  The rate of improvement in educational attainment is 44 percent faster in schools rebuilt using PFI than those rebuilt conventionally. This shows that our findings from last year persist.

•  Unauthorised absence in schools rebuilt using PFI is reducing, whereas in a comparable set of conventional schools it is increasing We believe unauthorised absence to be an indication of lack of student motivation, which is often argued to make a major contribution to student performance.

The above findings are noteworthy, as the data samples include all secondary schools rebuilt in England with the information necessary to meet our inclusion criteria. The datasets for the first and second findings consist of 89 and 81 schools respectively. They both represent an increase in the number of schools when compared to the dataset we analysed in 2008

On the following pages the report takes a closer look at educational attainment followed by a look at unauthorised absence. We have refrained from commenting on the mechanism through which we think PFI influences performance in these areas in the main body of the report. This is because we are unable to prove which factors are at play and can merely speculate We have, however, included a stand alone comment from an infrastructure practitioner on the possible causes.

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1 KPMG's Infrastructure Spotlight Report draws on research conducted under the supervision of Graham Ive of the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL (University College London)