Sectors

Education

The UK education sector is in the midst of a period of considerable change.

Over half of secondary schools have achieved – or have applied for - Academy status while the appetite for this model is also growing rapidly across the primary sector. Free School applications have gathered pace, while the roll-out of the new University Technical College (UTC) initiative offers a real opportunity to bridge the gap between education and employment.

Changes to funding, meanwhile, have curtailed the traditional local authority model and largely replaced it with new government revenue streams that focus on free schools, academies, studio schools and UTCs. Alongside this, the newly-formed Education Funding Agency (EFA) will support a number of school building and renewal schemes which already exist or are due to launch, such as the legacy BSF programmes, the National Academies Framework and the Priority Schools Building Programme. Underpinning this investment is a desire to streamline the procurement process and reduce costs which could be achieved through the introduction of standardisation and simpler consultation processes.

The Further and Higher education sectors have also seen significant transformation in recent years due to changes in funding as well as the constantly evolving demand for places.

Capita Symonds combines education design and development advice from experienced educationalists with cutting edge architecture, engineering, FM, ICT, sport & leisure, and project management expertise. We also provide strategic real estate advice to ensure that clients get the most out of their property assets, developing new revenue streams that will form the cornerstone of an organisation’s long-term goals. 

It is this breadth and depth of knowledge and expertise that helps us provide clients with a unique perspective on their project or programme, enabling us to enhance the scheme itself while also realising new opportunities and benefits for an educational establishment and its wider community.

Over the last ten years we have been involved in:

• 60 Academies proving design, project management, technical advisor, and education consultancy services;
• 12 Building Schools for the Future programmes;
• Nine Free Schools providing services services such as technical advisory , project management and education consultancy;
• The design of alternative procurement routes for UTCs;
• The development of a ‘standardised model’ - Adapt - for primary and secondary schools.

Capita Symonds is particularly successful at responding to changes in the education sector, identifying new and innovative solutions that enable our clients to meet today’s challenges head on, while always ensuring that we produce learning environments that help all students reach their potential.

Our Adapt proposition is a prime example of this approach. Created in response to the James Review, it offers four innovative school designs that can be implemented at any suitable site in the UK. These designs can be constructed in half the time of a traditional build, reducing costs substantially – for a typical primary school build costs are reduced from £4.5m to just £2.38m, while 40-60% of capital savings can be made over a school’s life time. 

Designed to achieve at least a BREEAM ‘Very Good’ rating, Adapt also provides schools with a flexible building layout that can easily be adapted to meet future needs. The first school to be built using the Adapt method will be the Heymann Infant School in Nottingham.

For the Further and Higher education sectors, meanwhile, we have developed various alternative funding models including the introduction of local asset backed funding vehicles that enable universities to realise their existing stock while raising capital for their ongoing estates strategy.

At the heart of Capita Symonds’ work is also a commitment to improve the outcomes for all those involved in an education project. To facilitate this, we work closely with key stakeholders – government, sponsors, teachers, parents, pupils, promoters, schools, local authorities and local communities – to understand and embrace their educational requirements and aspirations from the outset.

We have developed a range of tools that enable us to engage in a meaningful dialogue with all relevant groups, the outputs of which are then used to inform the project from the initial planning stage right through the design process. This approach ensures that all objectives are achieved and that learning environments operate effectively, both for today’s students as well as for future generations.

We are a major division of Capita plc - the UK's leading provider of business process outsourcing - and we work closely with other divisions of Capita to provide a complete portfolio of services to the education sector. Find out more about Capita's full education offering.