David Anderson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to give local authorities responsibility to plan, commission and build facilities to tackle classroom overcrowding; and if she will make a statement.

Mr David Laws

Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area.

Supporting local authorities to create school places where they are needed most is one of the Department for Education’s main priorities. This is why we have committed £5 billion in capital funding between 2011 and 2015 to help local authorities create new school places. This is more than twice the £1.9 billion in the equivalent four year period 2007/8 to 2010/11. In addition, the Department has announced an additional £2.35 billion in capital funding to help create new school places that will be needed by September 2017, giving local authorities a three-year planning horizon.

Local authorities can use this funding to expand any existing schools and can also run competitions to establish new schools.