Education Provision: South Buckinghamshire

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) on securing this important debate. She has been a champion for children in south Buckinghamshire and for every child to secure a school place that allows them to achieve and thrive. This Government recognise how important it is that every child gets a great education at a good school in their area. We work closely with our local authority colleagues to achieve that, including in Buckinghamshire.

Local authorities, including in Buckinghamshire, have a statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient school places for children in their area, as the hon. Lady referenced. To support local authorities to deliver on that statutory duty, the Department provides capital funding through the basic need grant for mainstream school places. Funding is based on local authorities’ own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. They also receive the high needs provision capital allocation to invest in places for children and young people with special educational needs or who require alternative provision—the hon. Lady mentioned that specifically and I will come to it shortly.

The Department engages with local authorities on a regular basis to review their plans for creating additional primary and pre-16 secondary school places, and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities experience difficulties, the Department offers support and advice, including through the pupil place planning adviser. I hope the hon. Lady finds it reassuring that all that support is in place.

At local authority level, Buckinghamshire is forecast to have an increasing surplus of primary places, especially in the year of entry—reception—and in key stage 1. There are, however, some areas of primary place pressure, including at Gerrards Cross and the Chalfonts in the south of the county. At secondary phase, Buckinghamshire is forecast to have a small, slightly declining surplus. However, in common with the primary phase, underlying the local authority-wide picture there are variations in place pressure. The academically selective element of secondary education in Buckinghamshire adds an additional element of complexity in place planning, as does cross-border movement into schools in neighbouring local authorities, which the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) referenced.

Nearly £1.5 billion has been announced to support local authorities to create the mainstream school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year beginning September 2026. The funding is not ringfenced, subject to the conditions set out in the published grant determination letter, and nor is it time-bound, meaning that local authorities are free to use it to best meet their local priorities. They can use it to fund places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools, and they can work with any school in their local area, including academies and free schools.

[Mr Dhesi]

We have a hugely increasing population in Slough and south Bucks, as well as a high need for SEND provision. I just want to ascertain whether the Minister and her Department will factor those considerations into their determination over a new school in Burnham, on the boundary of Slough and south Bucks, to ensure that the right decision is reached for a new school.

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend raises some important points, both of which are factors that the Buckinghamshire and Slough local authorities, where relevant, will have to take into consideration when determining how to use their allocation.

Buckinghamshire council has been allocated just below £11.3 million to support the provision of the new mainstream school places that it feels it will need over the current and next two academic years, up to and including September 2026. We have also announced £740 million in high needs capital for 2025-26 to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, or who require alternative provision, and we will confirm the specific local authority allocations later in the spring. The important point is that this new funding can be used to adapt classrooms to make them more accessible for children with special educational needs. It can be used to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that could deliver more intensive support, to adapt them to meet pupils needs, alongside continuing to provide places to support the pupils in special schools with the most complex needs.

[David Simmonds]

Will the Minister commit to working with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to review the impact of home-to-school transport rules on the situation? In Hillingdon, there is around a 20% vacancy rate due to falling pupil numbers. All London boroughs contribute to Transport for London, and therefore transport to school on London public transport is free. However, if Buckinghamshire wished to take advantage of those vacancies, bringing those children to schools in Hillingdon would be a general fund cost to council tax payers. Clearly, in efficiently providing those places, it may well be that by looking at those cross-border transport issues we could produce a beneficial outcome for my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), and for the schools that would thereby benefit from additional pupils.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Gentleman raises an import point, which is something the Department is very focused on. Indeed, we need to work with local authorities to deliver on that. The aim of the Department’s home-to-school travel policy is to ensure that no child is prevented from accessing education because of a lack of transport. Local authorities are required to arrange free travel for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school but cannot walk there because of the distance or because of a special educational need, disability or mobility problem, or because the route is not safe. There are also additional rights to free travel for low-income households, to ensure that they can exercise school choice.

However, I recognise the challenge that the hon. Gentleman raises. It relates to the investment that we would like to see in mainstream provision—indeed, it is why he jumped up as I was talking about this—to make it more suitable and to adapt it where necessary, in order to have much greater inclusion of children with special educational needs and disabilities, so that they can be educated in their local area, wherever possible, with their peers. That will ensure better outcomes for those children, but it will also tackle some of the growing challenges that he quite rightly identifies with school transport.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield mentioned a specific request for confirmation on a local special school application—she tempts me to get ahead of announcements that will be made in due course. They are under consideration. Where children have highly complex needs, it is obviously important that we have those specialist school places available in the right place for the children who need them.

We are committed to ensuring that all schools co-operate with their local authority on school admissions and place planning to ensure there are sufficient school places where they are needed. Schools and academy trusts are expected to work collaboratively and constructively with local authorities and other key partners on place planning. We recently reinforced that expectation through the revised “Making significant changes to an academy” guidance. To strengthen it further, we are legislating to require all schools and local authorities to co-operate on admissions and place planning. This new duty will aim to foster greater co-operation between schools and local authorities in these important areas, as well as providing a backstop for addressing serious failures when co-operation is simply not happening.

We are also legislating to make changes to the legal framework for opening new schools. We will end the legal presumption that they should be academies in favour of prioritising any local offer that meets the needs of children and families, allowing proposals for other types of schools to be put forward where a new school is needed, including proposals from local authorities themselves. These changes better align local authorities’ responsibility to secure sufficient school places with their ability to open new schools.

The Government are entirely focused on the quality of education and experience that children are receiving at school, rather than the name above the door. All schools have an important role to play in driving high and rising standards so that every child can thrive, and, indeed, that will help local authorities to make the decisions that are right for the children in their areas. We want all children to be able to attend a high-quality school of their parents’ choice whenever possible. In 2024, 98.5% of children in Buckinghamshire were offered a place at one of their parents’ or carers’ top three preferred primary schools, and just over nine out of 10—91.1%—received an offer of their first preference. At the secondary phase, 91.2% of pupils in Buckinghamshire received an offer at one of their parents’ or carers’ top three preferred schools, with about three quarters—75.8%—receiving an offer of their first preference.

I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield for bringing this matter to the House’s attention, and I thank the other Members who contributed to the debate. It is obviously important for children to be able to gain access to school places—ideally in their local communities—that will enable them to achieve and thrive. I appreciate the case that the hon. Lady has made, but it is clearly to Buckinghamshire council that the case must be made. The Government will continue to work with our local authority colleagues, who have a statutory duty to ensure that enough mainstream school places are available. That includes providing funds through the basic need grant and continued support through our pupil place planning advisers, and introducing new legislation requiring all schools and local authorities to co-operate on admissions and place planning, so that every child in every community can have a good local school.

Question put and agreed to.