Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the number of (a) primary and (b) secondary school places.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities. The department collects pupil forecasts and school capacity data from local authorities annually through the School Capacity (SCAP) survey. The most recent SCAP data shows a need for 30,000 additional primary places and 40,000 additional secondary places between May 2023 and September 2027.

The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on the data they provide. The department has announced nearly £1.5 billion to support local authorities to create school places needed over the next three academic years, up to and including the academic year starting September 2026. This funding is on top of the department’s investment in the free schools programme and means the department has now committed Basic Need capital funding of over £14 billion to support the creation of new school places between 2011 and 2026.

The department also engages with local authorities on a regular basis to review their plans for creating additional places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities are experiencing difficulties, the department supports them to find solutions as quickly as possible.

Between 2010 and 2023, the department supported the creation of 722,000 primary and 466,000 secondary places in response to a substantial increase in pupil numbers. This is the largest increase in school capacity in at least two generations, following a fall of 100,000 places between 2004 and 2010. Many more places are in the pipeline.