Education A MAJOR contract to advise a Government agency on a programme to build more than 250 schools has been won by a North-East law firm.

Dickinson Dees has been appointed to advise and provide full legal services to the Education Funding Agency (EFA) on a new school-building programme in the North and Midlands.

The contract involves handling the legal side of the construction of schools which will be built over the next two years from the Midlands to the Scottish Border as part of the Government’s Priority School Building Programme.

The project for the EFA, an executive agency of the Department for Education which has replaced Partnerships for Schools, involves a mixture of private finance and capital projects for 261 primary, secondary and special schools across a number of local authorities over a five year period.

The firm will provide legal advice is required in relation to areas including contentious and non-contentious construction, planning, procurement, education law, charity law and tax.

Kevin Robertson, a partner in the public services team at Dickinson Dees, said: “This is a very significant appointment for us and we are delighted to have been appointed as the sole adviser to the EFA for the new-built programme for schools in the North and Midlands.

“It is a ringing endorsement of the skills we possess in this highly competitive sector and we look forward to working with the EFA to provide them with first-class legal advice. This appointment builds on our successful relationship with the EFA on the Free Schools programme.”