Lord Knight of Weymouth
Main Page: Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Knight of Weymouth's debates with the Department for Education
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, further to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, I too was drawn to the announcement of the further 140 free schools, which said that 30 would go through the local authority route. I am interested to know exactly how that works, given that this is the Minister’s responsibility, and how much more efficient that is than going through the department. Will he answer her question as to whether the local authorities concerned will get any money to pursue that route?
Yes. As I said, we have been working very collaboratively with local authorities to plan much more accurately with them precisely where they want free schools. Local authorities obviously often produce free school sites on a peppercorn for no money. It is also clear to us that some local authorities have perhaps not been spending their basic need money, as they should have been, but relying on the central programme. I believe that this can be done efficiently. The local authorities that we work with certainly seem keen to provide many more of these schools. We go through a process whereby they decide where they want the schools to be and, effectively, an open process is then gone through whereby school providers can approach them and be approved, initially by the local authority and then by the department.