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

Cynergin Consultants has provided a "cradle to grave" service to LBH and managed the project from conception to procurement, project delivery and now full service delivery and is currently managing the payment mechanism and energy saving performance guarantee.

The Council concluded that it did not have sufficient internal resources and that major external investment was required to bring the heating systems and general infrastructure up to modern standards.

Gordon Allen, Premises Manager for LBH 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 expertise."

LBH 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. Understandably, the project attracted considerable interest from the private sector. Cynergin managed the technical and financial evaluation of the bids. This resulted in the selection of Johnson Controls Systems Ltd (JCSL) as the preferred bidder.

Accounting treatment was important to LBH so we structured the contract so that the private capital did not impact the Council's balance sheet.

The procurement closed in May 2003 using the Local Authority standard form of contract. Under the contract, JCSL were required to deliver major capital improvements to the participating schools including boiler retrofits, small-scale combined heat and power units for local electricity generation, lighting refurbishments as well as such diverse items as refurbishment 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-sport court.

The contract contains a payment mechanism under which JCSL must maintain room temperatures and appropriate hot water temperatures during the schools' operating hours. They are also required to maintain the new assets and provide a guaranteed level of energy savings compared to baseline for the full 15 years of the contract. Cynergin managed the delivery of the project for LBH and it was successfully completed in April 2005.

Cynergin is now monitoring the contract for the schools, including the payment mechanism and energy saving guarantee.

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."

Further info from: LBH@cynerginconsultants.com