By Richard Johnstone in Glasgow | 18 September 2013
Schools minister David Laws has revealed that the government is considering making long-term capital allocations to councils to provide new school places, in a bid to tackle what he called the ‘enormous challenge’ of the growing number of school-age children.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Liberal Democrat party conference in Glasgow, Laws said the June Spending Review had provided the Department for Education with a capital spending allocation until 2021, which meant it could then give greater funding certainty to councils.
He said the last allocation for capital funding to meet the ‘basic need’ of providing the right number of school places had been made to local authorities for two years.
However, work undertaken by the Department for Education with local authorities to improve the data available on where places are needed, and by when, meant allocations could now be better targeted. Around £21bn is available to provide extra places between 2015 and 2021 following announcements made by Danny Alexander in the spending round, he said.
‘We want to understand how many places are needed, and then over the months ahead we will be thinking about how to allocate that money that Danny has given us in the year ahead.
‘All of these things are subject to agreement in the department, between myself and the secretary of state and sign off by the Treasury, but I can tell you that my own instinct is to make sure not only we do this process as quickly as possible consistent with accurate numbers, but if we can, to make a longer-term allocation to local government. It can then plan properly and sensibly, rather than one year at a time, that seems to me that is really sensible thing to do.’
Such a move could help councils plan more effectively and better spend public money, he said.
‘It would not be sensible to allocate money so far out that we don't really know that it really reflected the place pressures, [but] the further that you can do it, the more intelligently local government can plan, the better value for money they can get, it's just common sense.
‘We need to see whether two years is the right amount and whether we could still go further, but we haven't made any decision on that yet.’
Laws also criticised an analysis by the Local Government Association, which warned earlier this month there could be more primary school children than places by 2016.
The report was ‘not entirely helpful for parents’, and it didn’t take into account both current allocations of capital funding, and the money made available following the Comprehensive Spending Review, Laws said.
