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2 Dec 2009 : Column 840W—continued
Primary Education: Bedfordshire
Nadine Dorries: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what recent representations he has received on proposed primary school closures in Mid-Bedfordshire constituency. [302917]
Ms Diana R. Johnson: None. School place planning is the statutory responsibility of individual local authorities. This includes making sure there are sufficient school places, and also removing surplus places when required. To facilitate this local authorities have the power to propose the closure of maintained schools.
Where local authorities propose to make any changes to local school provision, including closures, they must follow a statutory process, which is then decided under established local decision making arrangements. Ministers have no direct role in the process.
Primary Education: Greater London
Susan Kramer: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when his Department plans to announce allocation of funding to primary schools in the London boroughs of (a) Richmond and (b) Kingston upon Thames in respect of the September 2010 intake. [303018]
Mr. Coaker: We announced on 30 November 2009 the allocation of £271 million of capital funding for the provision of additional primary places by 2011, to 34 authorities including both Richmond upon Thames and Kingston upon Thames. Richmond is allocated £3.3 million and Kingston £8.2 million. This will enable these authorities to start projects to provide additional permanent places for 2010 and beyond. This allocation is in addition to over £1.2 billion allocated nationally from 2008-11, to support the provision of additional school places.
It is the responsibility of local authorities to forecast and plan to provide school places where they are needed. The Government allocate capital funding to support their provision, based on local authority forecasts. However, we accept that in some areas there have recently been local demographic and other pressures which have made this unusually difficult. Therefore, in July, we invited all authorities which are experiencing exceptionally high and unpredicted increase in demand for additional primary school places to apply for additional funding.
Initially, we secured £200 million for this need, but when evaluating applications, and from discussions with authorities and representative bodies, we concluded that a larger sum, and more flexibility in our eligibility and allocation criteria, would provide appropriate support to a wide range of the neediest authorities.
The Department does not allocate revenue money directly to schools. Local authorities need to allocate budgets to schools for the 2010-11 financial year before the 31 March 2010.
Schools: Admissions
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many schools in each local education authority have a percentage of surplus places of at least 25; and if he will make a statement. [303062]
Ms Diana R. Johnson: The Department collects information from each local authority on the number of surplus school places through an annual survey. The most recent data available relate to the position at January 2008.
The following table shows the number of schools in each local education authority which have a percentage of surplus places of 25 or above.
| LA | Number of primary schools with 25 per cent. or more surplus | Number of secondary schools with 25 per cent. or more surplus | Total |
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