PFI in South East England secondary schools: a school managers perspective

The Government has suggested that the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) will bring an end to the makeshift classrooms that have blighted the UK education system over the past few decades and that new, well-equipped classrooms will be the norm, rather than the exception. With the top 50 contracts alone worth more than one billion pounds it is imperative for the secondary education sector that this system of procurement is successful. Criticisms have already been voiced of PFI projects in secondary schools and reports suggest problems have included inexperienced clients encountering poorly prepared contractors. The research reported in this paper is part of a global research programme aimed at developing a process framework model to improve the design, execution and operation of PFI projects for school managers in secondary education. The aim of this work, therefore, is to establish the scale of difficulties and typical issues reported by school managers that have experienced development using PFI in the South East of England. Having conducted an extensive literary review and by using semi-structured interviews with secondary school managers, this research has established key problems following extensive upgrades of their schools under PFI. This will provide a clear focus for continuing research.