Not Just Surviving but Thriving!

The press might be overwhelmed with news of the credit crunch, but one sector that’s not been hit too hard by the country’s financial troubles is the education sector.

In fact, vast sums of money are currently being invested in school building and renovation, and the government has promised that the economic downturn will have no effect on school budgetary investment.

Building Schools for the Future

The Building Schools for the Future Programme, the biggest ever school investment programme, is aiming to re-build or renovate nearly every secondary school in England before 2020, and a total of £21.9bn is being invested in school building and development between 2008 and 2011.

What’s more, Alistair Darling has announced plans to increase the pace of school re-building projects in a bid to help out the construction industry, fast-tracking £800m of school building work to help kick-start the economy.

The result is that more businesses than ever before are looking to work with schools, and are choosing to advertise their services to education through the Headteachers and Bursars Handbooks.

Supplier Directories

The Headteacher Bursars Handbooks are directories of school suppliers that are designed to help guide school leaders through the procurement process by listing product and service providers in one place.

The Handbooks were created to help school buyers source Best Value products and services from an open marketplace and are sent free of charge to 32,000 schools and colleges nationwide biannually.

The Handbook of Sustainable Procurement lists businesses that can help schools achieve their sustainable schools targets, whilst the Handbook of Procurement is much broader in scope and contains details of companies supplying any type of product or service required in running a school, for both curriculum and non-curriculum spending.

More Choice for Schools

With more companies choosing to advertise their services to the educational marketplace, the Handbooks are now bigger and better than ever before, meaning that school buyers have an even wider choice of suppliers from which to choose.

SCEMES knows that choice fosters healthy competition and allows schools to source the Best Value products for their schools and is extremely proud to be providing schools with such a wide choice of suppliers in its latest editions of the Handbooks.

Connecting Schools and Suppliers

SCEMES exists to connect school buyers with local and national suppliers and is in an extremely strong position to be able to do this in the current economic climate.

SCEMES’ Managing Director Steve Meredith commented: “schools and colleges are one of the few sectors that will not be hit by the credit crisis and have money to spend on a number of products and services.

“With companies desperate for work and struggling to find employment in their usual field, this is the perfect time to advertise to the educational marketplace.

“The Headteachers and Bursars Handbooks are widely regarded as the number one resource for educational purchasing, so it’s natural that businesses would want to advertise in them.”

Strong Position

SCEMES Ltd is celebrating its tenth year of serving the educational marketplace this year and is in a stronger position than it has ever been before, having recently re-launched its core products and built up its staff base.

“We are reaping the rewards of having built a solid reputation as the number one resource for educational purchasing” said Steve.

“The newly designed Handbook of Procurement has been received with much enthusiasm from schools and customers alike and we’re looking forward to continuing to provide services of excellence to schools throughout 2009.”

ENDS

For more information visit www.scemes.com or contact Helen Gordon, Marketing and Projects Manager, on 01691 680945 / helen@scemes.net