Question 40 (Dr Pugh): A breakdown of costs the building costs and all other on-costs (consultancy, other services etc) involved in PFI schools

The Partnerships for Schools Benchmarking and Performance Management System captures detailed cost data from BSF projects which have reached financial close. Cost information has been gathered and analysed from 21 local authorities and includes information on 78 schools. Of these, 30 are for schools in PFI schemes. Costs are broken down into elements related to the capital construction of the school and the operating costs over the life of the contract, typically 25-years. This information does not yet include the resource costs which local authorities incur during the development and the procurement of the project.

The table below provides a summary of the cost data received for these PFI schools, with a detailed breakdown of the average cost of the major elements.

PFI delivered schools

Mainstream Schools £million

%

 

Special schools £million

%

Capital Costs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buildings

16.7

 

65%

 

6.4

 

69%

External Works, including hard surface areas, car parks, sports pitches, land drainage, fencing

2.4

 

9%

 

0.7

 

8%

Abnormals, such as costs of temporary works for phasing, poor ground conditions, clearance of ground contamination

1.3

 

%%

 

0.1

 

1%

Preliminaries, including management of and access to the construction site, scaffolding and cranes

3.3

 

13%

 

1.2

 

13%

Professional fees and surveys, including costs for architects, quantity surveyors, engineers and project managers, and some survey costs

2.2

 

8%

 

0.8

 

9%

Total

25.9

 

100%

 

9.2

 

100%

Furniture and Equipment (capital

1.3

 

 

 

0.4

 

 

Operating costs (per annum)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hard Facilities Management, including premises maintenance, caretaking and central management costs

0.3

 

70%

 

0.1

 

69%

Soft Facilities Management, including grounds maintenance, cleaning, catering and community useNOTE 1

0.1

 

30%

 

0.1

 

31%

Total

0.4

 

100%

 

0.2

 

100%

Note 1: Not all scholls include all soft-FM provisions in their PFI contracts and make alternative arrangements instead.

Note 2: The average capital costs were calculated from analysis of 30 PFI schools. At present, operating costs information is only available for 21 PFI schools.

Note 3: These figures are current estimates and represent an average of a relataively small sample size. They can be expected to vary aas more data becomes available.