Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has had to apologise to councils over mistakes in cancelling projects. Mr Gove has faced tough questions from MPs across the political spectrum about the scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future programme. On Monday he published a fifth version of the list showing which projects will be protected and which will be stopped - after earlier versions were found to contain errors.
Howe Dell School, Hertfordshire
Councils have been angered that they have already spent millions on preparing for building projects - and that they are still left "in limbo" about what happens next. The construction industry is also warning that it has lost £100m in the cost of bidding for projects that were then scrapped. Noble Francis, economist for the Construction Products Association, says contractors will be waiting to find why projects were stopped, before deciding whether to claim compensation.
The LGA says it has contacted more than three quarters of affected authorities - and these have spent more than £161m in planning and preparation. A spokeswoman says the total could reach £200m. Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock has said that costs should be refunded by the government - and that otherwise councils would have been "ripped off". The local authority group says that councils are still uncertain about whether there will be further reviews of decisions about building projects.
A spokesman for the Department for Education said: "The fact that 67 councils have spent more than £160m simply preparing for entry into Building Schools for the Future, without a single brick being laid in any of these authorities, shows exactly why we had to bring an end to this scandalous waste of public money."
