Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the number of children getting a place at their preferred school in Birmingham.

Local authorities have a statutory duty, under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996, to ensure that there are sufficient primary and secondary school places for all children living in their area, with a view to securing diversity of provision and increasing opportunities for parental choice and special educational provision for pupils who have Special Educational Needs. The department’s Pupil Place Planning Advisers engage 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, they offer support and advice. The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient school places. This funding is based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. Local authorities can use the funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools and can work with any school in their local area, including academies and free schools.

The funding is not ringfenced, subject to the conditions set out in the published Grant Determination Letter, nor is it time bound, meaning local authorities are free to use this funding to best meet their local priorities.

The department has announced Birmingham City Council will receive just over £51 million to support the provision of new school places needed between May 2022 and September 2026, paid across the 2022/23 and 2025/26 financial years. This takes their total funding allocated between 2011 and 2026 to just over £345.7 million.