Details of the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) continue to emerge, but the market keenly awaits greater certainty.
This is particularly the case in relation to the 219 schools that will be privately financed in four batches over the next five years.
Detail remains rather scant on how the privately financed element will work. The programme will be centrally procured by the Department for Education (DfE) and back-to-back arrangements entered into with each school, college or academy, in addition to the owners of the school sites, to deal with the allocation of contract risks.
Stakeholders will have a say in how their school looks, but there will be 'significant constraints' on what they can require.
It may be that DfE will be unwilling to entirely throw the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) baby out with the PSBP bathwater. Risk allocation and principles developed under previous schemes are likely, therefore, to remain of some relevance.