HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools: Fifty-Sixth Report of Session 2013-14, Report, Together with Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence

HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools: Fifty-Sixth Report of Session 2013-14, Report, Together with Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence
ISBN-10
0215071921
ISBN-13
9780215071927
Category
Education
Pages
57
Language
English
Published
2014-05-09
Publisher
The Stationery Office
Authors
Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts, Margaret Hodge

Description

Recent high-profile failures demonstrate that the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency's oversight arrangements for free schools are not yet working effectively. The Department and Agency have set up an approach to oversight which emphasises schools' autonomy, but standards of financial management and governance in some free schools are clearly not up to scratch. The Agency relies on high levels of compliance by schools, yet fewer than half of free schools submitted their required financial returns for 2011-12 to the Agency on time. Whistleblowers played a major role in uncovering recent scandals when problems should have been identified through the Agency's monitoring processes. There is also concern that applications for new free schools are not emerging from areas of greatest forecast need for more and better school places. The Department needs to set out how, and by when, it will encourage applications from areas with a high or severe forecast need for extra schools places, working with local authorities where appropriate. The Department should also be more open about the reasons for making decisions. Capital costs of the free school programme are escalating. The most recent round of approved free schools had a greater proportion of more expensive types, such as secondaries, special and alternative provision, located in more expensive regions such as London, the South East and South West. If this mix of approved free schools continues, there is a risk of costs exceeding available funding.

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