The petition of residents of the Newark constituency,
Declares that East Markham Primary School should have a hall provided by the County Council; further that the petitioners believe that the education of the children at the school is suffering for a variety of reasons including that there is no indoor PE or indoor drama facility, there is overcrowding and that the school has no ability to put on plays, concerts or performances for groups larger than around 30 people; and further that a local petition on this matter was signed by 186 individuals.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Nottinghamshire County Council to provide a school hall for East Markham Primary School.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Robert Jenrick, Official Report, 17 September 2015; Vol. 599, c. 1299.]
[P001547]
Observations from the Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb):
The provision of a school hall would fall under the responsibility of the local authority as it is a local authority maintained school.
On 9 February 2015, the Government announced £4.2 billion for capital investment in the condition of our schools over the period 2015-16 to 2017-18. This is in addition to the £5.6 billion that had already been announced for the current spending period, 2011-12 to 2014-15.
As well as providing funding directly to schools for their immediate priorities, much of this funding is allocated at local authority level so that investment decisions can be taken locally. Since 2011-12, Nottinghamshire County Council has been allocated some £39.8 million of capital support for investment in the condition of its maintained schools. In addition, a further £6.2 million was announced for 2015-16, and the same amount has been indicatively allocated for each of the 2016-17 and 2017-18 financial years. From 2015-16, we have used the information we have collected through the property data survey in allocating funding for school condition needs. This provides bodies responsible for school buildings (e.g. local authorities) with a fair share of funding according to their needs.
The school also has the option of becoming an academy and joining a multi-academy trust, which could make it eligible to benefit from the Trust’s capital allocation.
We would therefore recommend that the school continue to discuss its concerns with Nottinghamshire County Council. Now that the next three years of schools condition allocations have been announced, we trust that they will be able to give greater assurances in developing a plan to address the school's investment needs.