For eight months, david goldstone has been the acting chief executive of Partnerships for Schools, the quango overseeing the government's ￡2bn-a-year programme to refurbish or rebuild every secondary school in the country. During that time, the Department for Education and Skills has been searching for someone to take up the role permanently. Now it seems that they have located that person: David Goldstone. All it will require is the removal of the word "acting" from his job tite. The move is a pragmatic response to a problematic situation. The refurbishment programme is essential to securing the medium-term future of the British education system, and the government has committed itself to doing it in style. David Miliband, the rapidly rising schools minister, last year launched the Schools for the Future programme complete with exemplary designs from Will Alsop and Wilkinson Eyre, among others. So much for the aspirations. The problem, of course, is organising a task of this magnitude in the public sector-as the fate of Goldstone's predecessor demonstrates.
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