By Joe Rukin
Public Private Partnerships in education and the creeping privatisation which they represent have for over five years been hidden in a dark corner, where it would be hoped they would not be spotted, but with the Labour Party Conference threatening to vote against their leadership in a PPP debate and with high-profile projects starting to fail, the spotlight has swung round onto the GATS-driven policy.
For several years now, universities have seen cuts to their funding from central government. Now over half are operating in the red, with some threatening to sue the government. One of the most common responses from institutions to solve their funding problems has been to 'sell off the family silver', or in this case their halls of residence. Many others have completely disengaged from building new halls, and have got private firms to do the work for them. One other option has been taken with private constructions firms, to close buildings or indeed entire campuses to fund development elsewhere.
Now the corporates are coming out and demanding that more of them take the private option in halls building, with Nick Porter, the chief executive of The Unite Group warning of an accommodation crisis, claiming that up to 150,000 students would turn up at university without accommodation. This came the week after Sheffield student campaigners scored a massive victory as Unite pulled out of a deal to build 5,500 rooms for Sheffield University, which saw the housing groups shares drop to a 12-month low of 144p (5.6% drop). Earlier in the year their shares had been worth 366p. Sheffield had planned to go down the Nottingham Trent route of selling the halls and leasing them back, but Unite had told the University that the only way for the deal to be profitable was to knock down all their existing halls and start again. Pulling out of the deal cost Unite £1.3m, but it is unsure how much of that the taxpayer will pick up, as the deal was to have been done in partnership with HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England).
One of the reasons for homeless freshers at the moment though is the ineptitude of private firms in completing halls on time. In the North-West, almost 1,000 students arrived to find their rooms incomplete. Opal Estates' Great Newton Hall in Liverpool and Wilmslow Park in Manchester were both incomplete on the day students turned up, with the majority receiving prior warning. The 290 students in Liverpool were told that 'electrical problems' had put the completion back a week, although many doors and windows did not shut, and some were put up in the £85/night Adelphi Hotel with them all given £10/day compensation. Housing problems in the city were exasperated as the University of Liverpool had accepted 500 more students than last year, a move which (along with the sudden booking up of all the hotel rooms) left 111 freshers sleeping on the floor in games rooms, music studios, and TV lounges. At least with these students, the university had told them of the problems, unlike Opal who had let students 'turn up and find out' about their unfinished halls. The 111 students were warned they may be sleeping on the floor for a month and were told to leave all their possessions at home. The university generously said they would have £4/night knocked off their £2,500 rent! Hayley Jones from Neath said;
"I would not have come here if I had known how bad this was. We are making friends now but we will probably all be separated in different halls when they eventually find us rooms. We have one toilet and a shower between 20 of us. There is very little desk space and we are all going to struggle when lectures start next week. If someone becomes ill, we will all probably catch it."
Incidentally, the Liverpool halls where students are sleeping in what have been described as 'refugee camps' are to be sold off this year. A 245-bed hall was to be closed with at least one more 207 bed building under threat.
In Manchester, only 300 of the 949 students signing up to Opal's Wilmslow Park could move in, as other rooms were 'not fit for habitation', with fitting and safety checks still to come. They fared worse than their north-west counterparts, getting £25/week compensation. Manchester student Davinder Munday was not impressed
"It's a bit of a mess, we were promised the rooms would be ready but now Opal just keep telling us to turn up anyway on the 22nd and they'll sort something out from there. If everyone arrives on the same day and the flats aren't ready then it's going to be chaos. Opal have told us we will be given £25/week compensation for the inconvenience of living in a hotel, which considering we will have no kitchen facilities seems totally pathetic."
Despite the failure of the Sheffield project, the largest development in Higher Education is set to go ahead under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI- if anyone can tell me the difference between PFI & PPP- there seems to be none, please get in touch!) at the University of Hertfordshire. A new campus, which will double as a conference facility, will be built at Hatfield on the old BAe factory at a cost of £190m, with £120m coming from selling the Watford & Hertford sites, £7m from HEFCE and the rest from the PFI partner, Carillion. The campus is due to be ready in a year and rents in the new 1,900 bed hall will be between £70-£80/week.
The plan has come under heavy criticism from unions meeting at the labour party conference in Blackpool, with UNISON general secretary, Dave Prentis claiming the state was being "ripped off" by such schemes, which were far more expensive in the long run. But the National Union of Students' view was predictably nearer the government line. NUS VP Welfare Verity Coyle said:
"NUS will be commissioning research this year that proactively seeks good examples of part-privatisation, where good safe accommodation that reflects students' needs is in place. We are not systematically ruling out further partnerships, just asking universities to think carefully before they get involved with these companies."
"Although we're not against all forms of PPP we are anxious that student choice is being reduced while universities upgrade their accommodation because of the lucrative conference trade. This is top-up fees by the backdoor because some social classes are going to be outpriced as more accommodation is owned by companies run for profit."
Previous Reports (some other halls sales appear in round-ups)
7th June 2002, More halls privatised (Liverpool, Glasgow, Huddersfield)
19th June 2001, Durham renew halls protest
23rd May 2001, For Sale; Sheffield & City Halls of Residence
14th May 2001, Trent Halls to go, and at least 80 jobs
22nd April 2001, Halls Privatisation... Why Worry?
5th March 2001, Trent Tent City. Students protest against halls sell-off
Related Articles
Guardian, Private row goes public
Observer, Universities 'must sell off assets'
The Scotsman, Unite pulls out of 5500 university rooms deal
BBC, Universities challenge ministers
BBC, Campus fear and uncertainty
BBC, University 'free market' attacked
BBC, Shake up universities says minister
BBC, Private 'partners' not 'take-overs'
IC Liverpool, University is 'no better than a refugee camp'
NUS Online, Universities must give proper consideration to halls privatisation
