Q61 Mr Bacon: Higher up the food chain at an earlier stage in the process, so that it is easier to get partnerships established because more of the work was, if you like, off the shelf.
Mr Byles: We employ two lots of frameworks. One is for the provision of specialist advice where we negotiate with a range of technical, legal and financial advisers on the facilities for local authorities to draw on at very competitive rates for the kind of advice they need. Also, we look at the provision of construction through frameworks. There are circumstances where that is appropriate and provides good value for money. Very small schemes, those that do not involve PFI- Middlesborough and Sunderland are two such schemes-run very successfully and rapidly through use of frameworks and we continue to explore that as an option. It does only really work for smaller scale schemes.
Q62 Mr Bacon: Paragraph 3.18 talks about how you would select a private sector partner and set up an LEP before designing and scoping the first schools. "This sequence would potentially be cheaper and quicker to procure . . . ", although it would mean that local authorities could not use the experience of scoping the projects. "PfS believes it needs more confidence on whether such an approach would comply with EU regulations." Where does that now stand?
Mr Byles: As that paragraph is written. These are complex procurements made under the competitive dialogue legislation and it is essential that you test through a sample scheme before procuring in a programme such as BSF. We have taken detailed advice on this.
Q63 Mr Bacon: You are going to test it?
Mr Byles: We have not tested it. Part of our legal advice referred to in the last question is about getting that answer.
Q64 Mr Bacon: Ultimately, presumably, you only find out if it is waterproof if somebody sues you.
Mr Byles: There is quite a lot of suing going on across Europe at the moment on exactly that point which is why we tested it with specialist advice here. The strong advice is that for this programme under competitive dialogue legislation you must engage through the use of sample schemes and that means design costs at the point of procurement.
Q65 Mr Bacon: Mr Bell, you mentioned that Mr Byles had added a dimension of extra leadership and discipline to the programme since his arrival which I think was November 2006. The programme had been going for a couple of years before that. Given that it was known right at the inception that this was going to be a very big project, as you yourself described it, why was not the right leadership with the right discipline brought in at the beginning? It is an obvious thing to do. You have a big project. You make sure you have the right leadership.
Mr Bell: Yes. The first substantive post was Mr Byles's predecessor. We assumed he would provide that kind of leadership and would stay for a longer period than actually turned out. At that point we had to go out to advertise twice before attracting Mr Byles to the post.
Q66 Mr Bacon: That is because he did not want to leave Norfolk.
Mr Bell: It is very understandable.
Q67 Mr Bacon: If you look at the current issue of Norfolk Magazine, you will see Mr Stephen Fry saying that Norfolk is the most perfect place on the planet.
Mr Bell: I would not get into any kind of argument about that. This was going to be a difficult job to fill. Interestingly, we got somebody previously who had both private sector and regulatory experience in central government. When we did advertise widely, we had private sector applicants as well as public sector applicants. As it turned out, Mr Byles got the post. It was not that we had waited until getting Mr Byles before trying to get a long term post holder. It was just that Mr Byles's predecessor did not stay in post all that long.
Q68 Mr Bacon: Was Mr Byles's predecessor an internal appointment?
Mr Bell: He was Richard Bowker.
Q69 Mr Bacon: The rail man?
Mr Bell: yes.
Q70 Mr Bacon: He went from the Strategic Rail Authority when it was wound up to Partnerships for Schools?
Mr Bell: Yes.