<\/p>\n
Conservative governments spent \u00a3325m creating 67 free schools that subsequently failed or disappeared, many through lack of demand, according to data revealed by a freedom of information request.<\/p>\n
The figures from the Department for Education<\/a> (DfE) show that the government committed more than \u00a310bn to building new schools between 2014-15 and 2023-24, compared with \u00a36.8bn for rebuilding existing schools, which critics say left England with a backlog of crumbling and decaying buildings.<\/p>\n The free schools programme was launched by Michael Gove<\/a> as education secretary in 2010, under a novel formula allowing for groups or organisations to bid for funding for new schools approved centrally by the DfE.<\/p>\n While a number of free schools were successful, such as the Michaela community school in inner London, dozens of others became \u201cghost schools\u201d that foundered or were absorbed by existing schools and trusts.<\/p>\n The data shows that since 2010 more than \u00a3325m in capital funding was spent on 67 free schools centrally delivered by the DfE that later disappeared, bearing out warnings by the National Audit Office<\/a> that 50% of new free school places created between 2015 and 2021 would be surplus capacity within their local areas.<\/p>\n A government source said: \u201cThese staggering figures represent the worst excesses of Tory free schools dogma.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Tories unforgivably prioritised unnecessary free schools, which subsequently closed, over rebuilding crumbling schools and putting special school places where they were badly needed.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Labour government has fixed the foundations of our school system, dealing with the forces outside the school gates that wreck children\u2019s life chances and improving standards in stuck schools.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we\u2019re going to reform our schools so that children once forgotten by the system are now included, so they all have an education which broadens, not narrows, horizons so that every child has the chance to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n One example of a \u201cghost school\u201d built under the free schools programme was the Waterside primary academy in Nottingham<\/a>, constructed at a cost of \u00a311.5m to provide 210 places. The school will never open because of lack of demand, forcing the DfE to pull the plug late last year.<\/p>\n Instead the DfE agreed with Nottingham city council to convert the building into a special school, as a satellite to the existing Rosehill special school, to provide more places for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).<\/p>\n A regional breakdown shows in London \u00a355m was spent on eight free schools that closed or were \u201crebrokered\u201d, where a school is moved from one academy trust to another. In the West Midlands, \u00a316m was spent on two failed free schools, while 57 existing schools in the region were listed under the DfE\u2019s rebuilding programme.<\/p>\n