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School rebuilding fears have been proved right
• TEACHERS and parents in Islington will be at best concerned and at worst very angry to learn that the giant building company, Balfour Beatty, given the £140million contract by Islington Council to rebuild many of the borough’s secondary schools, has been named by the Office of Fair Trading as being among 112 builders accused of forming cartels illegally to rig bids for work (How much are these deals really worth, April 18).
Last Thursday, on the BBC news, a quantity surveyor who had resigned in disgust from one of the companies concerned, explained how, by colluding in the submission of a number of rigged contracts, a local authority could be tricked into paying £12million for a building project worth £10million.
The government and the council told us that the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is the best way of funding the borough’s Building Schools for the Future programme.
Islington National Union of Teachers was openly critical of PFI on the grounds that it was far more costly than the council carrying out the building work itself and that it was one more step along the road of privatising our public services. We have been proved right.
Education should be publicly provided and locally accountable. Which is also, of course, why Islington teachers and school support staff and many parents opposed the creation of two city academies in the borough.
While the council hands over two schools and the land they stand on to private sponsors and the government contributes around £60million in total, the sponsors chip in £2million per school – exactly the amount added on to the true cost of rebuilding a school by our friendly building contractor.
KEN MULLER
Assistant secretary, Islington National Union of Teachers
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