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<p>The Department is transforming buildings at 500 schools over the next decade as
part of its School Rebuilding Programme. The construction programmes of building projects
in all Department programmes is monitored by the Department through programme management
and project delivery teams.</p><p>In the four school rebuilding projects which have
been completed, three were delayed more than a month against initial forecasts. These
initial programme forecasts were made ahead of the impact of significant events that
could not have been reasonably predicted and that affected the global market.</p><p>The
Department has continuously improved its approach to building schools since the Sebastian
James’ review. This identified that the Building Schools for the Future programme,
introduced under the last Government in 2004, was overly bureaucratic and not designed
to target poor condition, did not support high and consistent quality, did not use
standardised specifications that work for education, and did not deliver value for
money and economies of scale from central procurement and delivery, which are all
things that are now prioritised when building schools.</p><p>Under the Priority School
Building Programme (PSBP) this Government launched in 2014, whole schools were built<del
class="ministerial"> at</del> one third <ins class="ministerial">cheaper</ins><del
class="ministerial"> of the cost</del> per square metre on average than schools built
under the Building Schools for the Future Programme. The Department has further built
on this success in its School Rebuilding Programme, which is exceeding delivery timescales
compared to PSBP, while delivering schools that will be net zero in operation. The
Infrastructure and Project Authority has highlighted that our progress is very good.</p>
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