Councils in London are unable to build new schools to cope with crippling demand for places because of delays in government funding, they warned today.
It means hundreds more children could be left without a school place next year because there is not enough space for them in existing buildings. Councils cannot start building new classrooms until they know how much money they will get, they said.
London already faces a 70,000 shortfall in places, but experts said this could reach crisis point by 2014 because of the delays.
Local authorities should have been given their basic need funding allocation in December, so they could budget how many new school places to build. But the funding announcement has been delayed three times.
London Councils, which represents all local authorities in the capital, said it takes 18 months to build a new school. Councils would have had to find out their funding agreements by February 7 if they were to open a new school in time for the next new school year. A source at London Councils said: “They can’t enter into construction contracts for additional places to meet growing demand as they have no guarantee of funding. The delayed announcement will cause real difficulty for London boroughs and could result in kids not being allocated a place.”
London Councils has written to the Government twice with its concerns, saying: “Boroughs are fighting an uphill battle to deliver sufficient places for September 2013.”
It added: “It is absolutely critical that construction projects designed to deliver the necessary permanent expansion begin now to avoid children being left without school places in September 2014.” Peter John, executive member for children and young people, said: “London boroughs are doing their utmost to provide every child with a school place, but this is becoming increasingly difficult with ongoing increases in demand and a lack of surety of funding from the Department for Education.”
The department said: “The capital allocations announcement has not yet been made because we are continuing to check the quality of the data provided to us by councils on which these allocations are based. We expect the announcement to be made shortly.”
