Architects await government decision on future of £1.2bn second phase.

The second phase of the largest Building Schools for the Future scheme in England is in limbo because of the impasse over which projects will get cut by the new government.

The £1.8 billion Kent BSF programme, which covers 134 schools, is due to finish in 2017.

A £600 million contract for the first phase of work was awarded in 2007 to a team headed by Kier, and including architects Clague, HKS and Lee Evans Partnership.

But the future of the larger second phase is unclear until the government decides which BSF projects it will cull.

Three firms – Skanska, Bouygues and Bovis Lend Lease - are waiting to bid for the scheme and have begun putting together teams of architects. Bovis’s team comprises BDP, DRMM, Make, Woods Bagot, JM Architects, Walters & Cohen as well as local practices Lee Evans and HMY.

But the job has still not been posted in Ojeu after being postponed twice already.

According to an internal email sent last November by Kent County Council’s director of capital programme, Grahame Ward, the second phase of work was supposed to have been advertised at the start of the year.

He told Sarah Hohler, the council’s cabinet member for education: “Based upon a January 2010 Ojeu notice, we would hope to reach financial close and the LEP2 [phase two winner] established by September 2011.”

It was then due to be advertised last month but was postponed again until after the election.

One architect expecting to win work on the job said: “I think it is looking very wobbly. I feel like crying into my soup.” Referring to the dominance of the Conservative Party in the county he added: “The only possible saving grace is that Kent is true blue.”

This week, Partnerships for Schools, which runs the BSF programme, said it could not comment on when an Ojeu for Kent would be issued.

Instead, it referred enquiries to a statement on BSF from the Department for Education, which said: “The DfE has not yet made a decision on BSF funding or any other capital programmes.”

Elsewhere, the Homes & Communities Agency has sought to head off looming cuts by reducing its costs by £2 million a year.

It plans to reduce the number of directors at the quango and cut the number of offices, vacating its main office in London’s Victoria.

Chancellor George Osborne will unveil the £6 billion of spending cuts promised between now and the end of March 2011 next week, with an emergency budget scheduled for June 22.

Architects’ Public sector pessimism

Predictions for public sector workloads fell to a new low last month, according to the RIBA Future Trends Survey.

Just 6% of practices predicted an increase in April, compared to 11% in March and 15% in February.

RIBA director of practice Adrian Dobson said: “Predictions for future public sector workloads have fallen to a new low, with a balance figure for this sector of -22. Practices of all sizes agree that public sector workloads are set to fall significantly.”

Overall, the survey revealed the number of practices expecting work of all types to increase dropped from 34% in March to 31% in April - a drop of nearly one-fifth on February’s level.

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