Schools: Closures

(asked on 24th January 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 19 December 2016 to Question 57746, on schools closures, for what reason those costs are not collected centrally.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 27th January 2017

I refer the honourable member to my response to question 58497, which I have re-stated below.

The Department does not record, centrally, information on the costs of school closures.

The Department has not made an assessment of the number of schools that have closed and opened in the West Midlands, as compared with other regions; but the majority of academies that have closed since 2010 were merged with other schools rather than closed outright, which indicates this is likely to be for local organisational reasons.

Where a school closure is proposed, a number of factors must be considered and balanced against each other before a decision can be made, including the financial implications. The department does not consider it would be useful to collate information on the cost of school closure across the piece as it is important to consider this in the context of an individual case and in a way that provides value for money to the taxpayer.

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