The UK's Education Funding Agency (EFA) announced on 10 May, 2013, 46 schools will be rebuilt using private finance in 5 batches under the next steps of the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP). The batches will use the government's new approach to public private partnerships, known as PF2.

These schools have a total funding requirement of approximately £700 million.

On June 28th, the EFA has published the first tender in the Official Journal of the European Union. The EFA is seeking contractors to design, build, finance and maintain new educational facilities and provide services for batch 1 of the PSBP programme in Hertfordshire, Luton and Reading.

It is anticipated that the services are likely to include hard facilities management services and may also include some soft facilities services. The proposed term of the Contract will include an estimated 24 month construction phase and a 25 year operational term from the service commencement date of the final school to be completed in this batch.

The educational facilities will be delivered using the private finance (PF2) model to provide seven new build secondary schools in the Hertfordshire, Luton and Reading area. The schools involved in this first batch are:

• Bishop's Hatfield Girls' School, Hatfield, Herts;
• Goffs School, nr Cheshunt, Herts;
• Kings Langley School, Kings Langley, Herts;
• Longdean School, Hemel Hempstead, Herts;
• Reading Girls' School, Reading, Berks;
• Stopsley High School, Luton, Beds; and
• Westfield Community Technology College, Watford, Herts.

The estimated capital value of the providing the new build secondary schools of Batch 1 is £100,000,000 to £150,000,000.The deadline for submissions of qualification documents is July 26th, 2013.The other batches, to be released to the market over the next 12 months, are:

• the North East
• the North West
• Yorkshire
• the Midlands

Sources: TED & UK Government