Q91 Dr Pugh: One further question following on from your answer to Mr Bacon and before that to Geraldine Smith. We were thinking about these 100 people, average salary £80K9 and so on, and you were asked basically why you still needed consultants given you had these highly paid and presumably pretty expert people, and I think your answer was, "We need the consultants for the technical stuff". This is a partnership responsible primarily for building schools. How many of those 100 people have qualifications in civil engineering or building?
Mr Byles: The purpose of Partnership for Schools is not a technical one. The core expertise we have is in project management and commercial negotiation. We have a very small number of people qualified in the way you describe, probably five people with those kinds of skills. My answer to Richard Bacon's question was that the bulk of our consultancy support is specialist legal advice and we have a very small number of lawyers.
Q92 Dr Pugh: Following on from client side expertise, which is a concern of this Committee and crops up in connection with a number of different inquiries, you are doing deals for managed services with IT suppliers and the like and advising on the same. How many people of those 100 have specialist professional qualifications in IT?
Mr Byles: Seven.
Q93 Dr Pugh: Seven.
Mr Bell: I find myself, Chairman, in the slightly odd position of wanting to defend the honour of consultants.
Q94 Chairman: Well, nobody else will!
Mr Bell: That is why it is a very odd position. I suppose the danger is that you lump together this group of people who provide all sorts of services and expertise, and we would want to express some caution because these people do, and have in many cases, provide really invaluable expertise in taking projects forward. I think that is enough defending of consultants.
Q95 Chairman: I think that also concludes our hearing. Our consultants are the National Audit Office, so can you plant in the collective memory of your office, Mr Burr, that you should go on looking at this for the next Parliament. I do not know how you can look at the value for money for this, not just in narrow terms about whether these schools are being built or what they are delivering in terms of good education. Can your office deal with this sort of inquiry?
Mr Burr: Certainly we could in looking to see if the early performance evidence from these refurbished and reconstructed schools reflected the added value from this programme.
Q96 Chairman: Exactly. And it will, will it, Mr Bell?
Mr Bell: Yes. I am slightly cautious about quoting rather random statistics about percentage increases in GCSEs because we are talking about such a small group of schools at this stage. As I indicated earlier, Chairman, the new smaller dashboard of indicators will include education measures as well, so I think we can start to get at this. From our point of view it is really important to understand this because these shiny new buildings are all very well, they are great for the students and the teachers who are there, but this was all built, if you will pardon the pun, on the basis that this was going to improve education. I think all the commentators, including some of those who are quoted in this report, identified that core purpose.
Chairman: That is a good, appropriate note to finish our inquiry on. Thank you very much.
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