Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the organisations which will run the proposed new schools in the new town in Sherford, Devon will be selected.

Where a local authority (LA) identifies the need to establish a new school, section 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 (the ‘academy presumption’) requires it to seek proposals, in the first instance, to establish an academy/free school. The LA must publish a new school specification, inviting proposals to establish and run the new school. The LA should assess all proposals received and send the outcome of their assessment to the Secretary of State. The LA may state its preferred proposer or ranking of proposers, which the Secretary of State will take into consideration when deciding whether or not to enter into a funding agreement with any of the proposers. However, the Secretary of State reserves the right to put in place a proposer of her own choice.

Guidance about the process is published online at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-and-free-school-presumption