Challenge to create pupil places
Derren Hayes
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Pressure is mounting on the government to do more to help English local authorities create 700,000 additional school places estimated to be needed by 2025.
Pressure is mounting on the government to do more to help English local authorities create 700,000 additional school places estimated to be needed by 2025.
A National Audit Office (NAO) report on capital funding for schools, published last week, provides the latest evidence to emerge on pressures in the education system. It found that £6.7bn needs to be invested in school buildings to bring them up to a satisfactory standard, and that 231,000 primary and 189,000 secondary places are needed by 2021.
Local authorities are legally responsible for ensuring sufficient school places exist for all children to attend. In England, there are around 21,200 state-funded schools educating 7.9 million pupils aged four to 19.
While the NAO found 10 per cent of primary and 16 per cent of secondary school places were unfilled in 2015, the spare capacity is not in areas where pupil demand is highest, and it concludes councils will face "significant challenges" to provide sufficient places, particularly in London.
It calls on the Department for Education to work more closely with authorities to understand and meet needs in local areas, and to set out clearly their responsibilities and accountabilities for managing the school estate.
So, what are the options open to councils for increasing school places and what does the NAO and education experts say about them?
Expand existing schools
Provisions in the Education Act 2011 that prevent the creation of new maintained schools in all but exceptional circumstances have seen councils focus on expanding existing schools. The NAO found 599,000 new places were created this way between 2010 and 2016.
However, this option has limited scope for the future "because primary schools have already expanded where this was straightforward, and it is more complicated to increase capacity in secondary schools as they require specialist facilities", it concludes.
Increase free schools
By September 2016, the DfE had funded the opening of 429 free schools and plans to open 883 in total by September 2020, creating 270,000 additional places. While the NAO says free schools offer good value for money and are popular with parents, half the new places created between 2015 and 2021 will create "spare capacity" in the areas where they open.
Meg Hillier, chair of the Commons' public accounts committee, says: "The DfE is choosing to open new free schools in areas that do not need them. This is taxpayers' money that could be used to fund much needed improvements in thousands of existing school buildings."
Peter John, deputy chair of London Councils, says it is "deeply worrying" free schools are not always built in areas experiencing high demand. "Enabling London boroughs to use their knowledge and expertise to help determine where new free schools should be built would be a positive first step towards ensuring better value for money from free schools," he adds.
Expand academies
While local authorities retain responsibility for academy schools, they have little say over how they are run and cannot force academies to create new places.
The NAO report says many councils have good relationships with academies, but where relationships are weaker, "options for creating new spaces are constrained".
Alison Michalska, vice-president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, says the expansion of the academies programme has "fragmented" the education system, resulting in schools being built in some areas "miles away from where they are needed". "This underlines the need for a national strategy, informed by local intelligence of current and anticipated needs, to address the growing shortage of school places," she adds.
Allow new schools to open
The Local Government Association (LGA) has long called for the Education Act restrictions to be removed so that councils can open new schools to create more places.
It says standards in maintained schools are higher than in academies and free schools - LGA research shows 91 per cent of maintained schools are rated "good" or "outstanding" by Ofsted.
Richard Watts, chair of the LGA's children and young people board, says: "If we're to meet the demand for school places, then existing academy schools should expand where required, or councils should be given back the powers to open new maintained schools.
"The government must commit to funding the creation of school places and hand powers back to councils so that they can open new primary and secondary schools."
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, backs the NAO's call for a more co-ordinated approach to school place planning. He says: "In an increasingly fragmented school system, we lack a co-ordinated approach. Integrated local planning of school places across maintained, academy and free schools is vital to ensure sufficient provision in all areas of the country."
599,000 Places created between 2010 and 2015420,000 New places needed from 2016 to 2021
270,000 Estimated new free school places by 2021
Source: Capital Funding for Schools, National Audit Office, Feb 2017
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