Gove apologises for BSF list chaos

Released 07/07/2010

10 more school projects cancelled

Education Secretary Michael Gove is to apologise "unreservedly" for errors in information released about the cancelled Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

There have been 25 mistakes reported in the Department for Education (DfE) list outlining which building projects would be scrapped, reviewed and protected following the axing of the BSF programme.

It means numerous schools that thought their building plans were safe are now being told they will not go ahead after all.

On Monday, Gove announced that the £55bn BSF programme would be abandoned, saying it had been riddled with "massive overspends, tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy".

Gove is due to send a letter to Speaker John Bercow on Wednesday, apologising for the errors.

A DfE spokesman said: "We apologise unreservedly for these errors and lack of clarity for parents, teachers and parents in these areas."

Under the original BSF scheme, set up by Labour in 2004, all 3,500 secondary schools in England were to be rebuilt or refurbished by 2023.

Following Gove's announcement on Monday, the department published a list of 1,500 schools outlining how their building plans would be affected. The list included 715 schools that were told their rebuilding projects had been cancelled.

On Tuesday former schools minister Vernon Coaker raised concerns that the list contained a number of inaccuracies. He demanded Gove explain to MPs "what on earth has been going on".

The DfE has today published a corrected list, which means that an extra 10 schools - nine in Sandwell and one in Doncaster - have now been told their projects have been stopped. A further 11 schools' projects are now up for "discussion".

The list of affected schools can be downloaded from the DfE website here.

Source: PA

See more news stories like this