Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the news story published by his Department on 1 February 2022, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that funding in Education Investment Areas is distributed within local authority areas according to need.

In the Levelling Up white paper, the government announced plans to drive school improvement in England through new Education Investment Areas (EIAs). These 55 local authorities will receive significant support, including retention payments to help schools with supply issues in these areas to retain the best teachers in high-priority subjects and investment in trust growth. The department will also be consulting on moving schools with successive requires improvement judgements by Ofsted into strong multi-academy trusts, which will enable such schools in EIAs to access the support they need to improve.

As part of the government’s plans to drive improvement in education, the Levelling Up white paper sets out our intention to increase access to leading universities for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This will include targeting new specialist 16-19 free schools where they are most needed and prioritising EIAs when taking these decisions. In many areas of the country, colleges and schools are providing excellent opportunities for disadvantaged students to progress to leading universities. The intention of this policy is to reach those areas where students’ potential is not currently being realised.

Decisions have not yet been taken on where new sixth forms will open, but the need for places and the quality of existing providers will be important considerations, just as in any other free school proposal. The department will set out further detail on the process for approving further free schools in due course.

On distributing investment according to local need more broadly, the department has also announced it will make more intensive investment across some EIAs identified as priority areas, where there are entrenched barriers to school improvement. More details will be set out in the schools white paper in the spring.