31 Lewisham has adopted a policy of universal provision for all pupils, meaning that it intends each of its schools to receive the same level of service, including interim ICT service for schools scheduled for development in later phases and the same standard of facilities maintenance for PFI and Design and Build schools. Lewisham is establishing sinking funds to meet these commitments.
32 Lewisham initially planned to deliver three new schools in a joint programme with neighbouring London Boroughs Greenwich and Southwark. The joint programme was disbanded in 2006, mainly because each Borough wanted to do different things. This delayed Lewisham's programme by about a year, whilst it extensively re-scoped its plans.
33 Consequently, PfS and Lewisham agreed to bundle its pathfinder projects with ten Wave 3 schools to produce a wider estate strategy and viable flow of work for a LEP.
34 Lewisham has established its LEP to have a fair degree of day-to-day operational independence from its integrated supply chain. Although it has more staff than the LEPs in our other case studies, Lewisham believes the LEP could still have more resource allocated to it. The LEP shareholders had jointly chosen a general manager from outside their organisations.
35 Lewisham and its partners are attempting to overcome early problems in establishing a partnership:
■ A disagreement and lack of communication over the material to be used for the structure of the schools led to a four-month delay in signing and contributed to a lack of planning for how the LEP would work in practice. Both sides told us that they were keen to rebuild trust, but that this would take time and effort. BSFI and the LEP have worked together to bring Lewisham and the private consortium closer together through a partnering workshop and discussion of how to make the LEP work now it is operational.
■ Lewisham agreed to an early works contract to avoid further delay in school openings. The LEP was able to offer a strategy for phased completion and handover to the schools for each of these early projects.