Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much (a) capital and (b) revenue expenditure has been spent on UTC Warrington since its inception.

The system for approving new free schools is underpinned by a rigorous application and evaluation process. Each application is considered against published criteria, focusing on the capacity and track record of proposers, with extensive due diligence and financial viability checks carried out on the applicant and affordability and value for money checks on the application and business case.

The Department is working with the contractor to finalise capital costs for UTC Warrington. The Department publishes capital costs for all free schools, university technical colleges (UTCs) and studio schools on GOV.UK once all works are completed and costs are finalised.

Given that these can be large and complex projects, this can take some time between first opening and publication. Additional finalised capital costs for individual free schools, UTCs and studio schools will be published in due course.

UTCs receive funding based on their local authority formulae, so are funded in the same way as their academy and maintained school counterparts in Warrington. The revenue funding received in each academic year by UTC Warrington is as follows:

In pre-opening, the Department gives free school projects and UTCs Project Development Grant (PDG) to cover essential non-capital costs up to the point at which the school opens.

The PDG rates that projects receive are determined by the type of school being opened. Once open, free schools and UTCs are funded on the same basis as other academies and maintained schools, although, as they grow, free schools and UTCs delivered through the government's central route also receive Post Opening Grant (POG). POG is given to reflect the additional costs in establishing a new publicly funded school which cannot be met through the General Annual Grant.

PDG and POG costs are published once free schools and UTCs are open, and POG costs are updated annually and can be found below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-spending-on-free-schools-and-studio-schools.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-spending-on-university-technical-colleges.