Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to her oral statement of 17 June 2017 on school funding, Official Report, column 568, by what process she will identify programmes for further efficiency savings; and when she plans to complete that process.

As the Secretary of State set out in her statement on 17 July 2017, we will make £315 million savings from the healthy pupils capital programme, reflecting reductions in the forecast revenue from the soft drinks industry levy, and release £280 million in savings from our free schools programme by working more efficiently to deliver our ambitious programme. This includes working more collaboratively with local authorities to provide free schools to meet basic need

We will identify the rest of the savings from efficiencies across the rest of the Department’s budget as we believe strongly that this funding is most valuable in the hands of head teachers and principals. The Secretary of State has asked the Department to conduct an internal exercise to identify these efficiencies without impacting on the delivery of our key priorities. We will say more about the outcome of this exercise in due course.