Education Capital Programmes (Coventry)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a good point, which I am about to come on to. We have allocated £800 million of basic need funding for 2011-12, which is actually twice the previous annual level of funding, to support the provision of increased places, particularly in primary schools, as a result of the increasing birth rate. In addition, we expect similar levels of funding to be allocated from 2012-13 until 2014-15, which will address some of the concerns that he has raised.

[Mr Cunningham]

How much of that £800 million will actually be allocated to Coventry? That is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West were getting at when they talked about the two schools.

[Mr Gibb]

The capital allocation for 2011-12 for Coventry city council and its schools was announced on 13 December last year, and it was in excess of £13 million. It is now for the council to prioritise how it will spend the available funding, taking into account the building needs of its schools and its own responsibilities to fulfil its statutory duties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that, but £13 million, which is the amount of capital allocated to Coventry, is a very significant sum. It is not as high as we would like it to be, or indeed as high as it has been in recent years, but it is high historically compared with spending in other Parliaments in recent times. We face a difficult budget deficit, and we want to ensure that any capital available is spent where the greatest need exists. That applies to schools such as Richard Lee primary school in Coventry. That case is a classic example of how we are trying to target the funding at the schools that need it most.

[Mr Cunningham]

What the Minister is actually doing is asking the local authority to use the wisdom of Solomon, when it needs just more than £40 million to properly resource its schools. He is putting the local authority in a terrible position, so it is no good blaming the local authority.

[Mr Gibb]

I am not blaming the local authority. What I am saying is that we took a decision that it was better to give the bulk of the funds available for capital spending to local authorities to decide how to allocate them rather than to maintain the levels of the devolved grant formula to schools in this spending review period in which we are encountering these very difficult decisions on the budget deficit. That is because local authorities, rather than the man or woman in Whitehall, are best placed to decide which schools in their area have the greatest need for capital to be spent on them, and that applies to Coventry. That is the decision that we took.

Officials at the Department have been working—

Education Expenditure (Coventry)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is always a sign of age when the Chairman is younger than oneself. Having celebrated a significant birthday last week, that has been brought home to me in stark terms, but it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing this debate. On behalf of his constituents, he is an assiduous advocate on these issues in written questions, on the Floor of the House and in the debate.

The Government’s ambition is to raise academic standards in our schools and to ensure high-quality education for all children, particularly those from poorer backgrounds. Education is the key to social mobility and the Government's key objective is to close the attainment gap between those from the wealthiest and poorest backgrounds, so we put the Academies Act 2010 on to the statute book to enable us to expand the academies programme. During the past two weeks, 100 new academies have opened, one of which is the Sidney Stringer academy in Coventry, which is where the former Education Secretary, Lady Morris, was once deputy head.

The Academies Act 2010 enables primary and special schools, for the first time, to become academies and to enjoy the greater freedoms that academy status brings. We are considering the national curriculum with the intention of restoring it to its intended purpose—a minimum core entitlement built around subject disciplines. We are enabling parents, teachers and other education providers to set up free schools so that parents have a real choice for their children.

School buildings, of course, need continuing investment, but it is vital that future spending represents the best possible value for money. The Building Schools for the Future programme was a flagship programme of the previous Government, of which the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) was a prominent and distinguished member. The programme aimed to rebuild or to refurbish every secondary school in the country by 2023. Where it has delivered, some impressive new buildings have been built, and no one would deny that a good working environment can only aid achievement and help to improve behaviour. But the BSF programme was not the most effective way to deliver new school buildings.

Rebuilding a school under BSF is three times more expensive than constructing a commercial building and twice as expensive as building a school in Ireland. During the five years of the BSF programme, a scheme that was intended to improve the entire stock of the nation's 3,500 secondary schools benefited just a 175 schools.

[Mr Cunningham]

The important point for my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr. Robinson) and for me is what will replace BSF, because we badly need those schools.

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. If he will be patient for a few minutes I will come to exactly that point.

Just 103 schools have been completely rebuilt under BSF. The budget bulged from £45 billion to £55 billion for a variety of reasons, some of which were legitimate, but the projected time scale rose from 10 years to 18. Of the £250 million spent before building began, £60 million was spent on consultants or advisory costs. In short, because of its structure and the way in which it was put together, BSF became a vast and confusing edifice of process within process and cost upon cost. It represented poor value for money. No one comes into politics to cut public spending, but the Government were faced with a £156 billion deficit, and it is our responsibility, difficult and painful as it may be, to tackle that problem lest we delay our economic recovery and cause further economic problems. We announced that the BSF programme is ending, but that does not mean the end of capital spending on schools.

I come now to the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Coventry South. When determining which projects would go ahead and which would cease, the Government developed a single set of criteria and applied them nationally. Those school projects that were part of the initial BSF schemes and had reached financial close would go ahead. Of the so-called sample projects that were part of an area’s initial BSF schemes and where financial close had not been reached—the sample schools to which the hon. Gentleman referred—only those with a selected bidder after close of competitive dialogue in the relevant local authority went ahead. Coventry had not reached close of dialogue in those sample schools. Some planned school projects, in addition to a local authority's initial scheme, were all allowed to continue. Unfortunately, the BSF projects in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and in Coventry as a whole, were not additional projects, had not appointed a preferred bidder, and had not reached financial close. As none of the criteria applied, the projects in question could not go ahead, with the exception of the Sidney Stringer academy.

In a meeting during the summer with the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, the Secretary of State indicated that he is keen for the Department to learn from Coventry's experience with BSF, and capital spending outside that review. The Secretary of State has made it clear that the end of BSF does not mean the end of capital spending on schools. Money will, of course, be invested in school buildings in the future, particularly with a rising birth rate and increasing demand for school places, but it is imperative that money is spent on buildings and not on process. To that end, a group headed by Sebastian James, and with other professionals, began a comprehensive review of all capital investment in schools—early years, colleges and sixth forms—and will consider how best to meet parental demand, to make design and procurement cost-effective and efficient, and to overhaul the allocation and targeting of capital.

The hon. Gentleman will know that officials working for the review team visited Coventry on 26 August and explored in depth the capital needs of the city's schools and the plans for tackling those needs. A further visit is planned for later this month when the capital review team will meet councillors, representatives of schools and city council officers to discuss the needs of the city’s schools including, in particular, the requirements of the city's special schools. I have taken on board the comments of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West about the state of those schools, particularly issues such as scaffolding holding up a building’s roof. Such issues will be taken into account by the capital review team, and I assure both hon. Members that the Department will continue to make capital allocations on the basis of need, particularly based on dilapidations and levels of deprivation. However, I am sure that both hon. Gentlemen will understand that I am unable to make any commitments today about how much money will be allocated, or exactly when. That will depend on the outcome of the spending review and the capital review.

[Mr Gibb]

The capital review will report by the end of December, so it will not coincide exactly with the end of the spending review. The hon. Gentleman will have to be a little more patient. There will be an interim review before that, but the answers to his specific question will not be available by that specific date.

[Mr Cunningham]

When the capital review has been completed, and when the Minister has met the councils and so on, will he meet the MPs again to discuss the outcome?

[Mr Gibb]

The capital review team will be delighted to hear from the hon. Gentleman—now is the opportunity to raise specific issues regarding the fabric of school buildings in his constituency and in Coventry—but it will not be able to report in public until it reports finally at the end of December.

In the time remaining, I want so speak briefly about the planned closure of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, which employs some 446 staff in Coventry, with another 43 staff working from home. The QCDA's remit is inconsistent with our vision for school improvement driven by school leaders and teachers, with as much of the education budget as possible going to schools. That is why many of the QCDA's centralising functions will be stopped, and others will be made more clearly accountable to Ministers. We are considering how vital work such as the national curriculum tests can best continue when the QCDA has been abolished. It is too early to assess the scale of any job losses, but we are working with QCDA carefully to plan the winding down of its functions, and the proper and sensitive handling of the implications of those changes for QCDA's staff.