Development consultant Interserve has won contracts to extend schools in the Midlands and Yorkshire worth £42m.
The largest is a £23m improvement programme at the Farnley Park High School in Leeds, which is being carried out as part of the Building Schools for the Future Programme. Work has just started and …

Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed that the government will cut 60% from school building and refurbishment projects over the next four years.
Today, the chancellor said the government would spend £15.8bn investing in school refurbishment and rebuilding projects, a reduction in 60% from the previous Labour government’s Building Schools for the …

As property braces itself for the Comprehensive Spending Review, Nick Johnstone considers the repercussions of a “once-in-a-century” moment in government property policy.
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A scruffy 200,000 sq ft office block is about to come on to the market in Edinburgh. Its occupier, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), is cutting costs …

Francis Maude has announced that 192  government quangos are set to be axed, and a further 289 to be reformed.
This morning, Cabinet Office minister Maude published the definitive list of bodies to be scrapped including the Infrastructure Planning Commission and development corporations in the Thames Gateway.
The Homes and Communities Agency …

Stephen Hollowood, executive director and head of public sector at GVA Grimley, looks at which parts of the UK will be hit hardest by next Wednesday’s comprehensive spending review:
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The much-anticipated comprehensive spending review will announce funding cuts across all parts of the public sector, although more so for some …

Three local authorities are taking legal action  against the government for axing the £55bn Building Schools for the Future programme.
Labour-run councils in Nottingham, Luton and Waltham Forest have all called for a judicial review of the decision, taken by education secretary Michael Gove in July.
Nottingham City Council has lodged papers …

Public sector and business leaders in Liverpool have set up a task force to secure funding for schools projects stalled by the axing of the £350m Building Schools for the Future programme.
Liverpool Vision chief executive Max Steinberg (pictured) is to lead the task force to find ways of raising the …

Public sector funding could be lost to the private sector under mandatory energy efficiency scheme the Carbon Reduction Commitment, a government committee has warned.
Today, the Committee on Climate Change has published recommendations to government on the CRC. It warned that the potential for the public sector and private sector to …

St Modwen and Birmingham City Council have submitted plans for a £5m youth centre, to be developed at the heart of the Longbridge regeneration project.
The proposals were drawn up after the council won a grant from the government’s Myplace programme, which is delivered by the Big Lottery Fund and is …

RICS president Robert Peto has today warned of the threat of a second recession led by cuts to public spending.
Speaking today at the Association of Chief Estates Surveyors autumn conference in Newquay, Peto said that property professionals would “find out the future of our lives” at the government’s spending review …