Partnership for Schools to be wound down in April 2012, says Education Secretary

The Education Secretary this week confirmed the closure of Partnerships for Schools, the government’s delivery body for capital investment into schools.

Michael Gove said PfS would be wound up in April 2012 and its functions transferred to the Department for Education policy directorates and the new Education Funding Agency, an executive agency of the Department.

The Education Secretary said: “Following Sebastian James’s proposals for a new system for managing capital expenditure and the wider reform of arms length bodies, I have decided the time is right to bring together, in a single agency, the allocation and management of revenue and capital funding, including the delivery of capital programmes.”

The James Review, whose findings were published in April, concluded that the system for capital investment in schools was “not fit for purpose” and suggested that the public sector had consistently failed to get the value it should have done out of the Building Schools for the Future programme.

Gove said a reduction in the number of arms length bodies would “allow more resource to be directed to the front line, where it matters most, and enable people to see more clearly who is accountable for what and to speak more directly to Government”.

The minister also said that Peter Lauener, chief executive of the also to-be-wound-up Young People’s Learning Agency, will become chief executive of the Education Funding Agency. The latter will take over the YPLA’s responsibility for the funding of young people’s education and training, including the increasing number of academies.

Further reading: Paying more than LIP service