Hampshire County Council

Buildings Land and Procurement Panel Item

19 October 2004

Services to Schools

Report by the Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services

How the conclusion of this report fits with the Corporate Strategy.

This scheme will impact on the delivery of the following Corporate Aims.

Aim 1 - Maximising life opportunities - by ensuring that Property Services meet the needs of headteachers, children and the wider community.

Aim 4 - Building strong and safe communities - by maintaining and improving buildings used by the community.

Aim 5 - Improving Services - by consulting headteachers and focusing on their needs in order that good quality services are delivered from well maintained and developed buildings.

1

Summary

1.1

The purpose of this report is to identify developments in the Property Management Services provided to schools informed by the results of independent research conducted with primary schools.

2

Development of the Service Level Agreement (SLA)

2.1

The framework for the delivery of Property Services to schools is established through the Service Level Agreement, (SLA) to which all community schools subscribe. The SLA is also the usual means by which schools access other building related services. The SLA has been developed as a comprehensive package comprising repair and maintenance work and associated technical and professional support. The package ensures:

· liabilities are managed for every school (irrespective of condition)

· economies of scale and purchasing power are maintained

· opportunities to integrate work and sources of funding are maximised

· access by schools to specialist services

· continuity of existing programmes

· one point of contact, 24 hours a day

· Governors' responsibilities for health and safety issues are met.

2.2

With the current SLA due to run until 31 March 2007, the development of services to schools will be a major feature of the department's improvement agenda over the coming 18 months. To this end the department has already commissioned independent research amongst the primary phase to ascertain areas for improvement and plans to undertake a similar exercise at secondary schools later this year. The key to developing the SLA will be to retain the features which are deemed to be strengths, outlined above, whilst responding to the research findings and schools' feedback that they wish to see:

· faster turnaround of school-funded projects and speedier response

times to issues generally

· simplification of procurement arrangements

· improvements to management partnership meetings

· continuity of frontline staff and more communication via e-mail.

Each of the above is discussed in more detail below and a summary of the research is provided in the appendix.

3

Management Partnership Meetings with Schools

3.1

Underpinning the SLA with schools are regular management partnership meetings. This is a key meeting between headteachers and the department's senior surveying staff and forms the primary means through which regular planning and consultation takes place. The focus of the current agenda is largely health and safety and feedback from schools suggests that they wish to see greater emphasis placed on their issues.

3.2

While the majority of primary schools said that they found these meetings useful (63% found them very useful and 29% fairly useful), their feedback suggests that greater emphasis should be placed on understanding Headteachers' expectations and future priorities and how these fit with the landlord's programmes. The department also needs to become smarter in the way it resolves action points arising from these meetings. The majority would also like to see an interim update discussion added to the annual cycle. These improvements have resource implications.

4

School Funded Projects - Devolved Capital Funding

4.1

Currently the department is progressing some 380 school funded projects and requests to resource new projects are being received at the rate of about 20 new projects each month. This current financial year just over £16m was devolved to schools as part of the Government's New Deal for Schools programme.

4.2

The department and the contractors it employs continue to receive high satisfaction ratings, indicated in the table below:

Performance Criteria

Performance Indicator

Department's Performance

Schools feedback - 87% schools say the Department's performance is either good or excellent.

Contractor's Performance

82% of schools say contractors' performance is either good or excellent.

Level of unallocated school funded work.

Backlog of unallocated schemes = 47.
Aim is reduce this to zero by April 2005.

4.3

The survey of schools has highlighted that they would like to see improved response times, particularly when it comes to developing school-funded projects. Around 60% of schools supported the idea of alternative procurement, such as packaging and partnering, as a means of making the process speedier and simpler. Considerable progress has been made in recent years to procure work on the basis of best value, but this has generally been restricted to the procurement of landlord and major capital projects. The extension of best value procurement to minor school-funded projects is being developed. In the meantime, resources are being refocused in order to deal with the backlog of projects.

5

Communication

5.1

For routine matters, schools have expressed a strong preference for using e-mail. However, in situations where building work is taking place, the preference for personal contact increases significantly. The department has a customer contact centre, however the majority of schools would prefer to get in touch with a named contact and for that named contact to be someone they know well and who is familiar with their school. Some Headteachers commented about the high turnover of staff and the difficulties it causes them when their point of contact changes. While there have been some staff changes over the last two years, the position is now fairly stable and efforts will be focused on consolidating and confirming current arrangements.

5.2

The feedback would indicate a need to review the existing channels of communication and the future role of the contact centre which needs to be aligned to the increase in the use of e-mail as the preferred means of contact.

6

Development for Secondary Schools

6.1

An announcement is awaited from the Government about the future of capital funding for secondary schools. Under the Governments "Building Schools for the Future" proposals, it is anticipated that some £2.2bn would be earmarked nationally for targeted allocations to LEA's aimed at comprehensive renewal and replacement of Secondary Schools in specific geographical areas. It is likely this approach will replace the current funding arrangements via the New Deal for Schools programme.

It is therefore proposed to review how we begin to plan for renewal of the SLA with secondary schools in the Autumn when it is anticipated the Government will make an announcement about the first phase of their Building Schools for the Future programme. As noted earlier, independent research will be undertaken during the autumn term.

7

Conclusion

7.1

The results of the research with primary schools provides a very clear indication of how schools would like to see property services developed and strengthened. These developments coincide with the run-up to the renewal of the SLA and form the basis of an improvement agenda within Property Services focused on:

· re-focused management partnership meetings with regular follow-up and feedback on actions

· best value procurement introduced for school-funded projects

· review of communication channels and consideration of the role of the customer contact centre.

Recommendation

That the Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel advises the Executive Member for Policy and Resources that the development of services to schools as part of the comprehensive service level agreement be approved.

%

Very useful

63

Fairly useful

29

No option/don't know

6

Not very useful

3

Not at all

-

%

Knowledge/expertise

60

Advice/liaison

27

Responsive staff

23

Service by individual members of staff

13

Local knowledge

9

H&S review

5

%

Slow response times

23

Poor lines of communication

15

Lead-in times

13

Failure to resolve longstanding concerns

10

Failure to monitor contractors

7

%

Less than three months

24

Three to six months

73

Seven to twelve months

1

Don't know

3

%

More Property staff with additional cost to school

25

Alternative procurement

59

Don't know

10

Other

5

%

%

How well-informed

Sources of information

Very

43

Contact with staff

37

Fairly

46

Property matters

28

Not very

9

Info. Sent to schools

21

Not at all

1

Word of mouth

15

Don't know

1

Website

9

Always known

5

Directory of contacts

4