Carillion And Schools

There has been a lot in the news about the appointment of a liquidator for Carillion and what this could mean for existing contracts with schools.

There are generally two types of Carillion contracts that schools are involved with:

• Contracts to build or maintain new schools or buildings; and
• Contracts for school services, such as cleaning or catering.

These contracts are sometimes a result of a PFI scheme, but that is not always the case.

At the moment, the government's advice is "business as usual" although it does accept that at least some building contracts may need to be re-procured due to Carillion's difficulties.  If schools with Carillion contracts are concerned about timescales slipping or build programs simply stopping, they should be looking at the detail in the contract to see what it says about insolvency.  Often, the contract can be terminated due to a party's insolvency and this may be something that schools want to consider doing