Education: Free School Funding

Lord Nash Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer to an Urgent Question given in another place this afternoon by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education. The Statement is as follows.

“I am delighted to be able to update the House on progress in providing new school places. Just last week, the Public Accounts Committee congratulated the department on the clear progress that has been made in delivering new school places through the free school programme, with costs significantly lower than under the previous Government’s school building programme.

Free schools cost around half what schools built under Building Schools for the Future cost. Thanks to the savings we have made, and thanks to the success of our long-term economic plan, we have been able to invest far more than the previous Government in creating new school places, especially in areas of need. We are investing £5 billion over the life of this Parliament in giving money to local authorities for new school places. That is more than twice what the previous Government spent over the equivalent preceding period, despite repeated warnings that the population was increasing. We plan to invest even more in the next Parliament, with £7 billion allocated for new school places.

As a result, we have delivered 212,000 new primary school places between 2012 and 2013 and we are on course to deliver another 357,000. Thanks to the efforts of many great local authorities, we now have fewer pupils in overcrowded primary schools than we had in 2010. As well as the expansion of existing local authority provision, we have also created, on top, 83,000 places in new free schools. The budget for these schools has been just under 10% of the department’s total capital spend.

Free schools are, so far, outperforming other schools inspected under our new and more rigorous Ofsted framework. Schools such as Dixons Trinity in Bradford and the Canary Wharf free school in Tower Hamlets have been ranked outstanding months after opening. Free schools are now oversubscribed, with three applications for every place and, indeed, the longer free schools are in place, the more popular they are. Schools such as the West London Free School and the London Academy of Excellence are becoming the most oversubscribed schools in their area.

It is important to remember that we have met the demand identified by local authorities for new school places and have also set up seven out of 10 free schools in areas of significant population growth. Indeed, as the National Audit Office has pointed out, £700 million of the £950 million spent on the free schools so far opened has actually augmented the money given to local authorities for new school places. Other free schools have been set up to provide quality provision where existing standards are too low or school improvements have been too slow.

We should never be complacent about educational standards but we should today take time to thank local authorities and all our school leaders and teachers, because no child in this country is without a school place, fewer are in overcrowded schools and Ofsted reports that more children are being taught good and outstanding lessons by more highly qualified teachers than ever before.

In short, thanks to the rigour with which we have borne down on costs, the innovation unleashed by the academy and free schools programmes, and the success of the Government’s economic strategy, we have been able both to provide all necessary school places and drive up quality across the board”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is of course only doing her job in pointing out the few failings in the free schools programme. However, overall, the programme is a massive success, as witnessed by the number of MPs across the other place this afternoon who praised the free schools in their constituencies and by the massive demand from parents, witnessed by their being three times oversubscribed.

Overall, free schools are far more likely to be rated outstanding within only a few months of opening than other schools. Any failings in our school buildings programme is but nothing compared to the massive failure of the previous Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme, which ran at least £10 billion over cost. That failure was coupled with their complete failure, apparently, to anticipate the looming crisis— despite repeated warnings and their immigration policy—in school places which we are now fixing.

I thought that the Public Accounts Committee report was very balanced and very fair. In particular, it was quite muted compared to the committee’s 2009 report into the Building Schools for the Future programme, which contained phrases such as,

“poor planning and persistent over-optimism”,

and said the department had,

“wasted public money by relying on consultants”,

and was “complacent”.

Rather than the free schools building programme taking money away from basic needs, it is in fact enhancing it: £1.1 billion has been allocated for 174 free schools, 70% of which are in areas of basic need; in the free school round announced in January this year, all our new maintained schools are in areas facing a shortage of places; and it looks likely that the latter will pretty much be the case as well for the new round to be announced shortly. We have been able to meet the demand for school places which we were left with by the previous Government, who in fact reduced the number of primary places by 200,000 despite the warnings. The noble Baroness referred to the Discovery New School. We have closed half of another school. We have in fact closed schools with 200 places in them which compares with the 150,000 new places that we have created under the free schools programme.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)]

Will my noble friend confirm that one of the most heartening aspects of the free schools programme is that every free school is opened only after extensive consultation with the local community? By the time the free school is open, it has huge community support, and the parents who have been involved in the setting up of the school have overwhelming enthusiasm and are greatly involved in the life of the school in a way that, in my experience, has been seen in very few local authority schools.

[Lord Nash]

I can confirm what my noble friend says. I encourage noble Lords from across the House to visit schools such as Dixons Trinity Bradford, Reach Academy Feltham, Canary Wharf College or ARK Conway Primary Academy, all of which have been rated outstanding within months of opening.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

The Minister is right to point to the fact that there are problems of overcrowding in maintained schools. In fact, a survey by the Local Government Association found that in 2012 one-fifth of primary schools were full, with the obvious problem of increased class sizes. Will the Minister confirm that every parent who wishes to send their child to a maintained primary school will be able to do so? Will he confirm or deny that no money has been diverted or augmented from the basic needs budget to the free schools programme? Will he confirm that it is still government policy that no free school should be run as a business? This has somehow been caught up in the issue of the meals programme for key stage 1 children. Will he confirm that the Government are fully committed to that programme?

[Lord Nash]

Local admissions arrangements are for the local authority in the area, although it is true that virtually all academies and free schools use the local authority admissions process. I have already answered the second point about money being directed from basic needs to free schools. We have a very strict policy: no free school or academy can be run as a business. Indeed, no one with any close relationship with a free school or academy can provide any services to that school except at cost. The Government are fully committed across party to the universal free school meals programme.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister said that no money has been diverted into the free schools programme. Will the Minister confirm that the Treasury set a limit? If, for example, the per capita payment per pupil—not the building cost, but the per capita cost per pupil—is higher for free schools, then both the local authority maintained schools and the voluntary sector schools are deprived of resources. I, for one, take offence when it is said that free schools have more highly qualified teachers when actually they are allowed to employ unqualified teachers. I consider that to be a slur. I admit that I am biased, but does the Minister accept that in Lancashire parents join in their local schools, be they church schools—of which Lancashire has the largest number—or other schools? When the Minister says that seven out of every nine free schools are justified, two out of every nine are not justified. County schools, local authority schools and the voluntary aided sector cannot use that money if it is being spent to support a whim of the Secretary of State.

[Lord Nash]

All academies and free schools are funded on an equal basis to maintained schools. They may get some start-up grants, but their annual revenue going forward is equal. As regards the slur to which the noble Baroness referred, the Statement says quite clearly that Ofsted has reported that all schools, not just free schools, have more highly qualified teachers than ever before.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I understand that the very first duty of any education department is to ensure that every single parent will have the opportunity to place his or her child in a maintained school if that is what he or she wishes. I am concerned by what appears to be a fog of misunderstanding. My understanding is that there are at least 12 local authorities—I give as examples Teeside, Ruislip, Croydon and Bristol—where it is said to be impossible for a parent to find a place in a maintained primary school. That should be the first duty of Government. It would be very helpful if the Minister could say specifically that he does not know of local authorities that cannot find a primary school place for their children. If someone wants to send their child to a free school that is perfectly fair, but it should not be forced on them.

[Lord Nash]

I have said quite clearly that we have satisfied all the demand for free school places and we have funded local authorities to be able to satisfy that demand. Of course, we now have a system in which 60% of secondary schools and 12% of primary schools are academies. It may well be that in some areas the nearest school which the allocation process in the local authority directs parents to will be a free school rather than a local authority maintained school.