Damian Hinds
Main Page: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)Department Debates - View all Damian Hinds's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am in favour of more flexibility overall, but we need to recognise that money spent on state education should stay in state schools. There are many great state schools in Portsmouth, and I was fortunate enough to talk yesterday with the leader of Portsmouth city council, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, and appreciate how hard he is working, along with my hon. Friend, to ensure that Portsmouth gets the support it deserves for its state schools.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
In making the new capital programme more efficient than BSF, will my right hon. Friend confirm that sums of money will not be earmarked and siphoned off for things like the unnecessary IT projects that led to such cost overruns under BSF?
Michael Gove
That is a very distinguished point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). One of the problems with BSF is that £210 million was spent by local authorities on consultants, including IT consultants, and some of that money was invested in material that we would not describe as state of the art. It is critical to ensure that we get value for every penny we spend. Information technology is critical to effective learning in the 21st century, but so is ensuring that we get proper value for money.