Schools: Admissions

(asked on 24th July 2014) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 2 July (WA 273), what steps they intend to take to tackle the estimated increase in young people in schools to over eight million by 2023.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Nash
This question was answered on 30th July 2014

Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places for their area. 260,000 additional places have been created between May 2010 and May 2013, including 212,000 primary places, and authorities have plans to create many more places in order to meet future demand.

The Government provides significant capital funding to support local authorities. The Department for Education has already committed £5 billion for the financial years 2011-15, and in December 2013, the Department announced a further £2.35 billion in basic need funding to support local authorities to create the additional places that will be needed by September 2017.

Funding for free schools is additional to the basic need allocations to local authorities. To date, seven in 10 mainstream free schools have been opened in areas of basic need, and will create a total of over 50,000 places.

Ensuring that there are enough school places for the growing population is one of the Government’s top priorities, and the Department for Education will continue to support local authorities to create sufficient school places.

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