By Richard Johnstone | 12 May 2014
Education Secretary Michael Gove has insisted the government’s free schools programme is being funded in addition to money provided to meet the basic need for additional places for a growing population.
Answering an urgent question in the House of Commons after reports that £400m had been moved from the basic need to fund free school developments, Gove said money had not been ‘diverted away’.
Instead, he said the coalition had increased the amount of funding for basic need across the country, with money to establish free schools ‘augmenting’ this.
He added: ‘This coalition government has increased primary places and targeted basic needs, and provided excellent extra capacity through the free schools programme.’
Asked directly by Labour MP Andy Sawford if £400m had been moved from basic need to free schools to fill a funding gap, Gove said: ‘We’re actually spending more on free schools and on basic need as a result on the decision we have taken.’
Around 83,000 places had been created through the government’s free school programme, and many were over-subscribed, he said. In addition, councils had been given three-year funding settlements to boost school places.
However, Labour’s shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said the transfer showed the free school programme was ‘an act of ideological vandalism’.
He added: ‘There is a national crisis in primary school places of this government’s making. Last year the number of infant class sizes with more than 30 children double.
‘This from a Tory party that promised smaller class sizes at the last general election. Gove’s decision to transfer this funding away from areas in need of new primary places into the free school programme is an act of ideological vandalism.’
Responding to reports of the funding switch, CIPFA chief executive Rob Whiteman said: ‘With the very tight position on public spending the government needs to make sure it is getting good value for the money it is spending and whether it is creating the maximum number of new places by switching resources to free schools.
‘The evidence would suggest that free schools are sometimes creating surplus capacity in areas with sufficient places while other areas are left in need.
‘In education we must make sure that when public money is made available for new school places it is targeted at the areas of greatest need and that all such spending must be allocated in a way that is fair, transparent and accountable.’
The National Union of Teachers said free schools provided ‘expensive places for small numbers of children in schools which lack oversight and are being established in many areas where they are not needed’.
General secretary Christine Blower said: ‘The lack of financial scrutiny exercised by the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency has led to a number of high profile scandals which were only exposed because of whistle-blowers.
‘Given the absence of financial control from the centre, it is likely that more could follow. It is time the prime minister asserted his leadership and reined in the secretary of state by announcing an end to the free school programme.’
