Nearly £140m wasted on free schools – National Union of Teachers
Written by News on 17/04/2017
At least £138m has been wasted opening free schools, analysis has found.
The National Union of Teachers says Government data has revealed squandering of money on a huge scale.
Sixty-two free schools, university technical colleges (UTCs) or studio schools have either closed, partially closed or failed to open.
In one case up to £15m was swallowed up on a single college, with other UTCs costing tens of millions.
Kevin Courtney, NUT general secretary, said: "That sums of this magnitude have been thrown away at a time when schools across the country are crying out for funding for staff, to provide a broad and balanced curriculum and to ensure essential resources and equipment are available, is criminal.
"Ministers should apologise to teachers and parents."
The information came from Government websites, company house and media reports, the NUT said.
Last week, Education Secretary Justine Greening announced that more than 130 new free schools have been approved by the Government.
The schools will collectively create around 69,000 places for pupils, Ms Greening said.
Free schools are state schools that are not under local council control and have freedom over areas such as staff pay and the curriculum.
The Government has banned local authorities from opening new schools that are not either free schools or academies.
In total, 124 free schools have opened since 2015, with 373 more, including those announced this week, due to open.
Mr Courtney said the money wasted could have been spent on teaching staff.
He added that the figure could be much higher, as some of the data the union sought was unavailable.
A Department for Education spokeswoman said: "There are 1.8 million more children in good or outstanding schools than in 2010 and free schools are playing a vital role in creating those good school places.
"They are popular with parents, ensuring thousands more families have the choice of a good local school. The construction costs of a newly-built free school are 29% lower than those built under the previous school building programme.
"They also operate under a much more robust accountability system than council-run schools, meaning we can take swift action to deal with under-performance and, as such, they are currently the highest performing group of non-selective schools."
(c) Sky News 2017: Nearly £140m wasted on free schools – National Union of Teachers
