Mr (The Secretary of State for
Education): My honourable friend, the Parliamentary
Under Secretary of State for the School System (Lord Agnew) has
made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
The Government is committed to creating more good school places
through a diverse education system, to ensure that parents have
choice and that children of all backgrounds have access to the
best education.
We are investing £7 billion from 2015 to 2021 to create new
school places. This forms part of our wider plan to invest more
than £23 billion in the school estate by 2021. By continuing to
announce the profile of allocations ahead of time, we recognise
that good investment decisions require certainty.
As part of this, I am announcing a total package of £730 million
of capital funding to create new school places. This includes
£630 million of basic need allocations to create the places
needed by September 2021. Announcing these allocations means
local authorities can plan ahead with confidence, and make good
strategic investment decisions to ensure they deliver good school
places for every child who needs one.
We recently published the 2017 School Capacity Survey, which
highlights the progress to date in providing new school places.
By May 2017, our investment had already helped to create 825,000
additional school places since 2010, with 90,000 delivered in
2016/17 alone.
The vast majority of these new places are being created in good
or outstanding schools. This is demonstrated through the latest
school place scorecards released, which show that 91% of the new
places added between 2016 and 2017 in both primary and secondary
phases were created in schools rated as good or outstanding by
Ofsted.
The Government is also committed to investing in school places
for children with special educational needs and disabilities. As
part of this, I am announcing a further £50 million top-up to the
Special Provision Capital Fund to take our total investment to
£265 million across 2018-21. This additional funding will help
local authorities to create further school places and facilities
for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
I am also announcing £50 million of basic need funding,
contributing towards the capital costs of building a new
mainstream secondary presumption free school in a targeted number
of local authorities.
