DfE misses free school deadlines
Lauren Higgs
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Department for Education (DfE) has missed two key deadlines set out in its own business plan, which were intended to speed up the creation of new free schools.
It promised to revise school building guidance by January and pledged to amend planning guidance to increase the number of potential sites for new schools. But neither objective has been met.
A spokeswoman for the DfE denied that the delay to the deadlines set out in the plan would affect the timescale for setting up any new free schools, adding that the business plan published last year was a "draft" rather than a final copy.
"We will issue some short guidance for potential free school proposers during March," she said.
"This will reflect the approach we’ve been taking, and information we’ve given, to the early wave of free school projects; and what we’ve learnt from that process."
She added that the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) issued guidance to local planning authorities last year to make new schools a priority.
Ministers from both the DfE and CLG are investigating further options to reduce planning barriers to school development, she said.
But shadow education secretary Andy Burnham criticised the running of the DfE. He said: "Whatever [Education Secretary] Michael Gove touches turn to chaos. From school building to school sport and Bookstart, it's the same old story — no consultation, botched decisions and no grip on the detail.
"This is no way to run a government department. There is a severe lack of accountability and transparency over some programmes within the DfE, with parliamentary questions and freedom of information requests going unanswered. It's time he got a grip and stopped breaking his promises."