Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-03-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how many new school places will be required over the next ten years.

Lord Nash

Pupil forecasts based on Office for National Statistics population projections have been published to 2024 and they suggest that pupil numbers are due to rise significantly over that period. Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that there are sufficient school places to meet that need, and for determining precisely how many new places are needed in their area.

We allocate funding for new school places to local authorities three years in advance in order to balance the need for robust forecasts with the need to ensure certainty for local authorities over their future funding allocations. Supporting local authorities to create additional school places is one of the Government’s top priorities. This is signalled by this Government’s commitment to investing £23 billion by 2021 to create 600,000 new school places, open 500 new free schools and address essential maintenance needs.