Simon Claridge is a chartered management accountant with over 25 years’ experience of project finance and delivering community-based capital projects. Simon was instrumental in delivering schools, social housing and estate regeneration PFI schemes as well as college and university accommodation projects. Since joining DfE, he was a Project Director on the north-east batch of private-finance schools and responsible for approvals and assurance on the £4bn Priority School Building Programme. He now heads programme delivery for the £1.5bn FE Capital Transformation Fund