Matthew Offord – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2015-10-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that there are adequate numbers of school places in Hendon constituency.

Edward Timpson

Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area; supporting them in this is one of this government’s top priorities. We allocate basic need funding to local authorities to help create new school places where they are needed. The London Borough of Barnet has been allocated £27.9 million for the period 2015-18. Barnet also received £68.7 million of basic need funding between 2011 and 15, which is an increase of 49.5 million compared to the amount spent by the previous government in the period 2007-11.

The money allocated to Barnet since 2011 has helped to create 7,136 new school places between 2010 and 2014. In addition, Watling Park School, a primary free school that opened in September 2015, is due to provide 420 additional primary places once at full capacity.

Information on basic need allocations can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations-2015-to-2018

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