49 Lancashire started planning the restructuring of the eleven schools in Burnley and Pendle in 2002 when it consulted school heads, governors and dioceses. Before the announcement of BSF, Lancashire planned to do this without large-scale redevelopment of the buildings.
50 Lancashire set up an independent staff commission board in 2005-06 (academic year) to oversee the staff restructuring process and find jobs for staff in the new schools. There were no compulsory redundancies. Lancashire seconded the school headteachers to a central BSF planning team with Deputies acting as headteachers for the first year of the new schools. The Heads we spoke to told us they felt this was invaluable.
51 The new schools opened in the existing premises in September 2006. The first three transferred to their new buildings in September 2008. They were built to time and budget, helped by an early works agreement. The Local Authority and Heads told us they were highly satisfied with the quality of the LEP's designs, project management and delivery. Lancashire hopes the rest will transfer to new buildings before the end of 2010.
52 The construction of the next two schools, Unity College and Marsden, was delayed by a year due to a public inquiry into a compulsory purchase order for Unity College and an application to declare that Marsden's site is a town green.
53 We found that to date the benefits from the LEP were yet to be captured because the supply chain was being managed through a traditional client contractor relationship. This arrangement had led to a difficult relationship between Lancashire and Catalyst. They did not allow enough time between finishing procurement and the next phase of developing schools to establish effective working relationships and processes. Lancashire and Catalyst are working to improve their partnering, with assistance from PfS and BSFI.
54 Lancashire was the only case study where we encountered any general dissatisfaction with BSF in our focus groups or interviews (as distinct from detailed comments about delivery arrangements). Staff and pupils reported discontent with the pre-BSF staff restructuring process, which they associated with the programme. The focus group and interviews with Local Authorities' officials and members also reported a large amount of negative local press and community campaigns against the local BSF programme. The headteachers told us about some of the difficulties this caused them and the difficult role they took in managing the schools' local community relations.