The London Borough of Havering had an urgent need to gain investment in the heating and engineering infrastructure of its secondary schools.

The Council concluded that it did not have sufficient internal resources and major external investment was required to bring the heating systems and general infrastructure of the schools up to modern standards. Gordon Allen, Premises Manager for the Council was convinced that new approaches had to be adopted if the problems were going to be tackled. “We realised that we could never address the deeply embedded infrastructure issues on our own, and so resolved to tackle them using a combination of public and private funds and professional expertise.”
The Council decided to apply for a New Deal for Schools grant. The New deal for Schools initiative was a £1billion programme targeted at modernising Britain’s schools. They ultimately received a multi-million pound grant and commissioned Cynergin to develop a creative Public Private Partnership hybrid that would lever in matched-funding from the private sector. Working closely with the Council and the Schools, Cynergin defined the detailed requirements and developed a comprehensive Output Specification suitable for a competitive procurement under the PPP/PFI guidelines and the EC procurement rules.
Cynergin managed the technical and financial evaluation of the bids, which resulted in the selection of Johnson Controls Systems Ltd (JCSL) as the preferred bidder.

Accounting treatment was important to the Council so the contract was structured such that the private capital did not impact the Council’s balance sheet. Under the contract, JCSL were required to deliver major capital improvements to the participating schools including: boiler retrofits; small-scale CHP units for local electricity generation; lighting refurbishments; and such diverse items such as refurbishments of changing rooms and showers; re-cladding and new double-glazed windows in several schools; and even the filling-in of a swimming pool to create a new all-weather tennis and multi-sports court.

Cynergin Director, Nick Ray, believes that this is a ground-breaking project; “we have been pleased to play a leading role in guiding this project from conception through procurement, project delivery, and now into full service delivery. The participating schools are now enjoying a much improved learning and teaching environment. The project has also allowed Havering to devote its own capital to other hard-pressed schools.”