The government will not start procurement of the £2bn second phase of the Priority School Building Programme until next year, amid uncertainty over the outcome of the forthcoming Spending Review. Two separate sources close to the programme have told Building that procurement of the programme, launched in May 2014 by then schools minister David Laws, may now be put back until as late as June or July next year, with spring seen as the earliest date. When the programme was launched, Laws said it would run from 2015 until 2021, with the Education Funding Agency's (EFA) supply chain expecting the first schools to come out to market in September this year. The Education Funding Agency has now told contractors that it will not make a formal announcement on the timetable for procurement of the 277-school programme until the end of the year, after the Spending Review later this month. However, despite supply chain sources insisting the news represents a delay of up to nine months on what they previously expected, a spokesperson for the EFA said there will be no delay to implementation of the PSBP programme overall, which is due to complete by 2021.
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