Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding academy sponsors have committed to provide in capital funding to academies in England; and how much of that funding has been provided in each of the last five years.

As set out in the National Audit Office 2010 report on the academies programme, “In September 2009, the government removed altogether the requirement for sponsors to make a financial contribution to new academies that open in the 2010-11 academic year.”

The government is investing £23 billion of capital funding in the school estate between 2016-17 and 2020-21 to deliver new school places, rebuild or refurbish buildings in the worst condition and deliver thousands of condition projects across the school estate.

A large proportion of school capital funding is delivered through annual allocations to local authorities and larger multi-academy trusts (MATs). This includes basic need funding to local authorities to meet their duty to ensure there are enough places for children in their areas and annual allocations to local authorities and MATs to maintain the condition of estates. Alongside these allocations, the department also delivers major building programmes centrally. This includes the Priority Schools Building Programme, which is rebuilding or refurbishing more than 500 school buildings in the poorest condition across the country, and the free schools programme.

Condition funding allocations are published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-allocations.

Basic Need allocations are published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations.