Primary School Places (Bromley)

David Laws Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) on securing this important debate. I understand why this matter is important to him and his constituents. He has been kind enough to indicate that it is also a matter of keen interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), within whose constituency the free school in question sits.

I will first set out some of the context relating to the pressure on school places in Bromley and across the country, but I promise the hon. Gentleman that I will come directly to the substantive points that he has raised about this particular free school. I will also explain the context around the way in which we plan for free schools across the country.

During the lifetime of this Parliament, we will have invested more than £5 billion to help to create much needed school places across England. As a result, last year there were over 250,000 more school places than there were in 2010. The number of pupils in England is rising rapidly and is set to continue to rise well into the next Parliament. Indeed, the London borough of Bromley anticipates a 13% rise in primary pupil numbers between 2011-12 and 2015-16. We know that London authorities face a particular challenge, given the scale of population growth, the mobility of the population, the challenge of finding suitable sites to expand provision and the high costs of buildings. For the period 2011 to 2015, London has been allocated £1.6 billion of funding by my Department, which is around a third of the total basic need allocation for the whole of England.

Ensuring that every child is able to attend a good or outstanding school in their local area is at the heart of the Government’s comprehensive programme of reform of the school system. To achieve our aims, we have announced the provision of £2.35 billion to help local authorities to plan and create the new school places between 2015 and 2017. That is additional to the £5 billion, and Bromley will receive £62 million of this funding between 2011 and 2017, which compares with Bromley’s funding of just £12.1 million of basic need capital under the last Government between 2007 and 2010-11.

As the hon. Gentleman said, in addition to basic need funding free schools are providing both additional investment in the school estate and additional places. Free schools are making a major contribution to delivering basic need and are delivering good-quality places in areas where those are needed. Seven in 10 open mainstream free schools have been set up in areas where there was need for additional school places. This Government have now funded 174 new free schools in addition to the basic need funding, which is massively increasing resource in areas where it is needed. Some 24,000 pupils are currently attending these free schools, and all open and planned free schools will provide 175,000 new places overall.

We have also made it easier for local authorities to plan and deliver places by extending these basic need allocations to a three-year forward planning period, which gives local authorities more certainty about funding and allows them to plan strategically for the places they need. We have listened to the particular challenges faced by London authorities, including Bromley, and have changed the methodology used to allocate funding for 2015 to 2017 so that we take into account the higher costs of building in our capital city by providing a specific uplift for London authorities compared with those in the rest of England. We are also targeting funding more effectively, based on local needs, by using data we have collected from local authorities about the size of schools and forecast pupil projections.

As I have said, I know that along with other authorities Bromley faces challenges with increasing pupil numbers, and we have increased the funding that the local authority is receiving to address that need. The funding for Bromley in particular is on a steep upward trajectory. The London borough of Bromley currently has three open free schools, two of which opened successfully this September—Harris primary academy Shortlands and La Fontaine academy. Hon. Members will probably be aware of those. It was unfortunate that the Harris academy Beckenham free school did not open this September as planned, because of the local planning committee’s decision not to grant planning permission for the school’s intended temporary site. I entirely understand why hon. Members, including the hon. Gentleman, are concerned about that and about the uncertainty for parents.

[Bob Stewart]

I totally support my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd)—I may call him that—on this matter. In fairness, nobody expected the planning committee to turn this application down, so it came as a shock to all the authorities when that decision was made. Thanks to people such as Councillor Stephen Wells, who had an alternative plan, places in decent schools, such as Unicorn primary school, have somehow been found for most of the pupils. This decision was a shock, and my hon. Friend and I both acknowledge that. But it is wrong that it happened. That is the point he is making, and I support it.

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says, and the planning officers would have been taken by surprise by this decision, as I believe they recommended approval—indeed, the application was supported by the education department. I will deal with that issue in a moment.

It is very important that we draw the right conclusions from this. When a new school is opening, be it a free school or any other school, there will always be an uncertainty about planning matters. We must make sure we distinguish between the problems we can avoid and those we cannot. I wish to address those points explicitly now.

The Harris academy Beckenham would have provided places to assist Bromley in addressing basic need pressures and, to that end, the local authority has been engaging with Department officials and the sponsor, as it was previously. I should make it very clear to the hon. Gentleman and to all hon. Members that the Department does not take into account free school places in its basic need allocations until the schools have actually opened. We take that decision precisely in case there are eventualities of this type; in other words, Bromley would not have been debited with the basic need funding for the pupil projections until this school had actually opened. That is one of the safeguards that we put in place to try to deal with uncertainties such as this.

When it became clear that the school would not open this September, the local authority was quick to respond by implementing back-up offers of places to pupils who had applied to the Harris Beckenham free school, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham just said. I am hopeful that the issue of planning permission for a temporary site for the school will be resolved, so that it is able to open in September 2015.

Site availability is a key driver of the school delivery timetable. Finding suitable sites as the free school programme expands is increasingly challenging, particularly within London authorities. That is true for all schools whether or not they are free schools. For all free school projects, the Education Funding Agency seeks to ensure that planning issues are identified early, planning submissions by contractors on behalf of free school trusts are robust and negotiated solutions are found to any concerns that arise.

We have also taken steps within the planning system to support the delivery of state-funded schools. That includes a requirement within the national planning policy framework for great weight to be given to the need to create, expand or alter schools and to the use of permitted development rights. Both have had a significant impact in ensuring that all free schools to date have eventually achieved their planning consent.

The establishment from this September of regional schools commissioners will also help to address any future issues in relation to free school delivery. Regional schools commissioners and their boards are in the process of building relationships with local authorities and local providers. Although no new powers will be given above and beyond the current powers of the Department for Education, regional schools commissioners and their boards of outstanding academy head teachers will instead exercise the powers and decisions currently taken by the Secretary of State.

I apologise to parents in the constituencies of my hon. Friend and of the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge that we have ended up in this situation. It is not something that the local authority, the Government or the sponsor wanted. My hon. Friend has made it clear that planning officials did recommend approval on this particular site.

I think I should point out—this is one of the lessons that we need to learn for the future—that offers of places to children at Beckenham were made by the local authority on national offer day in mid-April. At that stage, as for many other free schools, the funding agreement had not been signed and final confirmation that the school would open had not been made. The offer of places should have been conditional on the school opening. Harris had been keen to work with the local authority and the admissions process and to co-ordinate the offer of places through the local authority managed process. Both the local authority and the sponsor were trying to do what they thought was right in the interests of the parents and children in the area.

We have strengthened and clarified advice for local authorities and free school trusts about offers of places at free schools that are planned to open. When a funding agreement has not yet been signed, conditional offers should be made. They can be firmed up when the funding agreement is in place. I will feed back from this debate the comments that have been made by my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman to ensure that the lessons that I believe are being learned by local authorities, the Government and sponsors from this particular incident are there for the future.

My noble Friend Lord Nash leads on free schools in the Department. I know that he will have been concerned by what happened in Bromley and will want to ensure that it is avoided in other places in the future. Local authorities have risen to the challenge of providing for an increasing school population. We have already seen an increase of 260,000 school places between 2010 and 2013, including 212,000 additional primary places. Local authorities have told us that a further 300,000 additional places are in the pipeline for delivery by September 2015.

Bromley local authority has assured the Department for Education that it has good plans in place to ensure that all children requesting a school place will have one. I am pleased that the authority has been able to act swiftly to help those parents and children who have been impacted on by the delayed opening of the free school this year. Bromley has also indicated that it has plans to secure sufficient school places in the long term to meet demand given the additional resources being delivered by our Department.

I am glad to have been given the opportunity to update the House on the progress the Government are making to ensure that there are sufficient school places across England and particularly in the constituencies of the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend. We are not complacent about these challenges, but we will give local authorities the resources to meet the increased demand for places. I will feed back the conclusions of the debate to my noble Friend Lord Nash and I hope that the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend will feel free to raise directly with us any further concerns about progress in this free school application if they are worried that it is not on track for next year.

Question put and agreed to.