Hope Rhodes / BBCSchools across a city are caught up in an increasingly bitter row over repairs, with some telling the BBC they’ve had to fight to get work done while paying “astronomical” charges over 25 years.
The Stoke-on-Trent schools are all locked into a multi-million-pound Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, meaning they pay a company to keep their buildings in good condition.
The agreement is due to end in October, when schools fear the private firm will walk away, leaving behind a huge repair bill for work not completed.
BBC News has been investigating the row for more than a year, visiting multiple schools in the city, using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and analysing documents.
We can exclusively reveal 42 of the 88 schools involved are now withholding payments to the contract. The investigation also found:
- 35 of those schools received a letter from Stoke-on-Trent City Council threatening them with legal action in January
- Schools were also told at the end of January that there was not enough money left to complete all the repairs required before the contract ends
- None of the 88 schools in the contract have received any compensation for alleged failures, such as delays to repair buildings over the course of the 25-year contract
The contract was signed in 2000 between Stoke-on-Trent City Council and a firm called Transform Schools (Stoke) Limited (TSSL). It uses multinational company Equans to maintain the facilities.
The contract is the largest of its kind in England and will be among the first PFI deals in the country to expire. After the deal ends, the private company will have no further liability.
What happens next has implications for the expiry of almost 600 similar deals covering schools and hospitals across England.
Stoke City Council said its priority was to get the schools handed over “safe, warm and dry”, while the main contractor engaged under the PFI contract, Equans, said the buildings had been well maintained.
Hope Rhodes / BBCAt Our Lady and St Benedict primary, more than half the children are from families on the very lowest incomes. When the BBC visited the school last month, part of one classroom was cordoned off with hazard tape because plaster was falling off the walls. There was a hole in the ceiling and the wall was damp to touch.
The BBC has seen evidence the school has spent years chasing this and other repairs, which under the terms of the maintenance contract have to be done through Equans.
Head teacher Sarah Clowes says the school’s floors and windows are among almost 300 issues staff have identified – but the heating is her biggest headache.
A new boiler, fitted under the contract last summer, broke down when the first cold snap arrived, and the youngest children had to be sent home for three days because the building was so cold. Pupils in Year 6 remained at school, but had to wear their coats during lessons. When the heating broke down again in January, the school was unable to open and all the pupils had to stay at home.
Since the BBC approached Equans for comment last week, the damp plaster has been removed and repairs have begun. The school told us despite further repairs the heating is still not working in every classroom.
A few miles away, at St Margaret Ward Catholic Academy, the exterior render on the building is stained green with damp and is coming away in places. Inside, there is a huge stain where water comes through from the roof to the ground floor.
The BBC has also seen evidence of months of delays to fix three pumps that supply the school with water. Only one is working – and if it breaks the school says it will have to close because there would be no clean water for taps and toilets.
BBC News contacted Equans about the issue and the school has since been assured the pumps will be replaced during a school holiday.
Ian Beardmore, chief executive of Newman Catholic Collegiate – a group of six primaries and one secondary in the Stoke PFI contract – describes the charges his schools have been paying for the past 25 years as “astronomical”.
He says the annual maintenance fee for a plug socket installed in one primary school staff room was £400, and when he asked for the socket to be removed the school was charged £500.
Mr Beardmore says there are £1.8m of repairs that need to be carried out across his seven schools, which have been identified in expiry surveys carried out to assess their condition as the maintenance contract nears its end. Some work has already been classed as too expensive or not essential, he says.
“There’s no money, there’s no will to do it, and there’s no time in order to put these things into place,” he says. “It’s going to leave us severely out of pocket – and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”
The BBC has seen a letter, sent by Stoke-on-Trent City Council to all 88 schools in the Stoke contract, saying it “remains concerned” the PFI company “may not have sufficient funding available to them to complete all of the handback works”.
It will need to “reprioritise” work not already agreed, the letter continues, and target repairs which will leave all schools “in a safe, warm and dry condition” by the end of the contract.
Schools have told the BBC it is not clear how these priorities will be agreed or by whom. The council subsequently said schools would be consulted.
When something isn’t fixed quickly, or part of a school is out of use, these maintenance contracts allow for money to be held back from the private contractor. In this contract, Stoke-on-Trent City Council is responsible for making sure that happens.
However, the BBC investigation suggests little money has been held back, despite concerns from the schools.
The BBC analysed 25 years of published financial accounts for the PFI company TSSL and found £416,000 had been declared as deductions from the contract since 2014. In most years this was less than 1% of the fees.
Using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, BBC News also found that no money has been passed on to schools for contract failures over the last 25 years.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council told us it was still working through these payments, and they would be paid to schools before October.
The BBC shared its data with Ian Dennison, whose consultancy firm Inscyte is advising the schools fighting to get repairs done in Stoke. His company has worked on PFI school contracts across England.
Mr Dennison told the BBC the level of deductions in Stoke were “shockingly low” compared with similar contracts for PFI schools across England.
Time is running out for repairs to be carried out in Stoke’s PFI schools and Mr Dennison is not confident the buildings will be handed back in a satisfactory condition.
“We believe that there’s a really serious problem about to emerge around what works can be completed in time,” Mr Dennison says.
Putting buildings right at the end of contract is part of what the high yearly payments in PFI are intended to ensure.
Inscyte says the expiry surveys carried out for Stoke City Council and TSSL show the total repairs would cost millions.
Hope Rhodes / BBCThe use of PFI deals increased significantly under Tony Blair’s Labour government as a way of investing in public buildings without the government borrowing money up front. Under the deals, long-term agreements between the private and public sector were made.
In Stoke, the contract mainly covered maintaining existing school buildings, with a bit of new build. Elsewhere, completely new schools were built under PFI.
In 2018, the Conservative government scrapped the controversial PFI model after growing concerns it did not provide value for public money. But around 570 PFI contracts, including many to maintain and update school and hospital buildings, remained in place. Many are now nearing their end.
Five years ago the National Audit Office (NAO) – which scrutinises value for public money – warned of a risk of schools and hospitals being handed back in a poor condition if the final stage of these maintenance contracts wasn’t properly managed.
As contracts begin to wind down, the NAO said there is a disincentive for the private companies to spend money before they hand over responsibility for maintaining the buildings to public bodies.
In order to avoid this happening the government says “expiry health checks” should be carried out on buildings.
In response to an FOI request, the Cabinet Office confirmed expiry health checks were carried out on Stoke’s PFI schools in March 2021 and March 2024.
Their condition was given the second worst rating, “amber/red”, which means “major additional work” was needed.
The BBC asked the council, Equans and TSSL to comment on its findings.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council said there had been a “large amount of investment to maintain and improve these schools over the last 25 years”, which it claims means they are in a better condition than many schools elsewhere.
The council said recent high inflation had made repairs more expensive, but it would not agree to responsibility for buildings being handed back unless standards set out in the contract were met.
The council said more than half the work by value had been completed, and it was drawing up plans in case not all the work can be finished.
Equans said it has been “committed to ensuring Stoke’s schools have been well-maintained throughout the 25 years of the contract”. It said an average of 28,000 jobs have been completed across the schools every year, with 93% of planned and preventative tasks being completed on time and, for the rest of this year, “a busy schedule of work for the school holidays was planned”.
Some work on the damaged render at St Margaret Ward Catholic Academy is now due to be carried out over Easter, the BBC understands.
Transform Schools (Stoke) Limited said the schools had been maintained “in accordance with the contract”, adding that many of the school buildings were relatively old when it took over responsibility.
It said “all parties are working together to deliver the maintenance works by the contract expiry date”, adding that the schools were involved in the sign-off process and it was unaware of any dispute between the council and the schools and “unaware of widespread issues with quality”.
Additional reporting by Hope Rhodes.
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