7 The Manchester approach has been broadly successful so far:
■ The first contracts under the framework were signed in October 2006 and the first four schools have already opened. There has since been delay in the construction of the remaining schools, but Manchester is still confident it can initiate all its projects within the lifetime of its four year framework.
■ It has established strong partnership working arrangements. Contractors are co-located with Manchester's BSF team. They have established joint risk management, including a shared risk register and risk funding pool, so the issue of who pays for issues that arise is settled beforehand (up to the amount available in the pool), and they can concentrate on solving the problem. They use a 'Kit of Parts', a catalogue of school building parts, to try to achieve economies of scale, improve quality and reduce maintenance costs.
8 The main issues that have arisen so far are:
■ Manchester has adopted its own procurement model, which was not supported by PfS's standard processes. It had to spend additional time and money to modify existing documentation.
■ There is no single point of contact for schools and Manchester manages integration of contracts itself. Soft facilities maintenance is not included in its BSF procurement.
■ School leaders and teachers were concerned about the future running costs of the new school and a lack of support for the appointment of additional leadership capacity.