More than £17m 'wasted' as school building scheme axed

New figures show 17.6m has been spent by education authorities in Yorkshire as part of more than 200m across the country on developing school building schemes which now been shelved by Ministers. The Local Government Association has not provided figures for each council area, but six authorities in the region have been hit by the BSF cuts: Bradford, Doncaster, Kirklees, North East Lincolnshire, Rotherham and Wakefield. The figures emerged as hundreds of teachers, pupils and parents descended on Parliament yesterday for a rally organised by the NASUWT to protest against the Government's decision to axe more than 700 BSF projects nationally. In the Commons, Education Secretary Michael Gove also faced criticism over the rushing through of the Academies Bill which aims to give existing schools more freedoms and create a new wave of state-funded free schools which can be opened up by groups of teachers or parents. Liberal Democrat Bradford East MP David Ward warned that pushing through free school plans too quickly could lead to a "free-for-all" where the poorest communities miss out and organisations like the BNP attempt to set up their own schools. The Bill is going through the Commons before the summer recess, which begins next week in order to allow existing outstanding schools to convert into academies by September. Mr Gove said: "We can't afford to wait. We need reform, we need it now and we need this Bill." But Shadow Education Secretary and Morley and Outwood MP Ed Balls claimed the Bill, which has already completed its passage through the Lords, was being "railroaded" through the Commons to avoid proper scrutiny. He said to Mr Gove: "Your credibility is completely shot to pieces. Even your own backbenchers are now questioning your decision to rush this legislation on to the statute book and your decision to cancel hundreds of new schools." Earlier the Education Secretary had told MPs he was building on the reforms introduced under former Prime Minister Tony Blair, but the move has been attacked by Labour who claim it will focus on schools which are already successful rather than helping failing schools to improve. The original academies plan, launched by Mr Blair ten years ago saw new independently-run state schools set up to replace struggling secondaries with the freedom to set their own curriculum, timetable, admissions and employment arrangements. Now Mr Gove wants these freedoms to be enjoyed by as many schools as possible. He has written to all secondary, primary and special schools in England inviting them to apply for academy status. So far more than 1,500 have registered an interest including almost 100 from Yorkshire – of which 51 are rated as outstanding by Ofsted and will be pre-approved by the Government to become academies under their planned reforms. The decision to rush through the Academies Bill was also questioned yesterday by the Tory chairman of the education select committee, Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart. He said: "If few actually do convert (to academy status], the rushed legislative process will be hard to justify, but if, on the other hand, large numbers move then inevitably people will ask whether sufficient consideration has been given to the system-wide impact of this on things like support for children with special needs."