A Gateway 1 Review of our BSF Programme took place on 11-13 May 2010. This mandatory review was undertaken by an experienced team from Local Partnerships.
The Review Team’s assessment was immensely positive; commenting that it was "the strongest project they had reviewed at this stage of the programme". They made particular reference to aspects of best practice in the project relating to the overall strength of the team, including external advisors, our progress with CLASP, the strong documentation and the quality of our OBC submission, which they assessed as being one of the better documents they have viewed.
They have suggested some issues for us to consider moving forward - including the work to ensure that CLASP is properly considered in the procurement process, and making sure everyone is suitably prepared for the upcoming dialogue process. However they recognised these are areas that we are already focussed on.
Overall they assessed our project as Green/Amber.
Since the review took place, there has been some speculation about the BSF Programme in light of the new government’s upcoming spending review. The new Department for Education has not yet made a decision on BSF funding or any other capital programmes though Ministers are considering their priorities across all areas of spending including schools capital. However this review reinforces the view that we have a really strong team here in Nottinghamshire, which includes the core team, colleagues engaged with BSF across the Authority and our external advisors.
