Schools ‘losing out as Ministers sink millions into pet projects’

THE GOVERNMENT has been accused of pouring millions of pounds into launching “pet project” schools in Yorkshire while existing secondaries in the same city have seen £300m of rebuilding schemes scrapped through swingeing spending cuts.

Two new free schools are to be launched in Bradford next week – with the final cost to the taxpayer being kept under wraps – while the city’s existing schools face a backlog of repair work said to more than £50m.

Ministers have been criticised by a coalition MP and education campaigners for refusing to reveal exactly how much is being spent on launching this first wave of free schools in the region this year.

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Nationally up to £130m will be spent creating the first 24 of the flagship schools across the country, which open this month, including two in Bradford: The King’s Science Academy and the Rainbow Primary School along with Batley Grammar which is leaving the private sector.

The Department for Education (DfE) told the Yorkshire Post it would not yet say how much money was to be spent on the Bradford free schools because it could tip off contractors over how much they intend to invest.

Bradford East MP David Ward described the response as ludicrous and warned he would pursue the issue “to the ends of the earth” to get answers.

Fiona Millar, of the Local Schools Network which campaigns to promote council-run schools, said: “In every other area the Government has an open data agenda.

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“There are websites where people can find out all sorts of detail about school’s budgets but when it comes to free schools everything is being done in private.”

Free schools are a key reform of the Government with parents and teachers being urged to set up their own state-funded schools if they are unhappy with the choice on offer in their communities.

The two Bradford free schools will initially be based in the same building – the former home of Coral College, which was a private Muslim school in Manningham.

The initial capital costs preparing this site are expected to relatively low. However both Bradford free schools have plans to move to new sites in future and the Yorkshire Post has previously revealed that one school was expected to be given an overall budget of £10m.

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Mr Ward, a Liberal Democrat backbencher, said: “This is public money we are talking about which will be used to fund what I think will effectively be private schools and I am not having it.”

There are plans to relocate the King’s Science Academy, a secondary school, to the Lidget Green area of the city from 2012.

The Yorkshire Post has previously seen a memo from a Bradford Council director which revealed that around £10m was expected to be spent developing the school.

The King’s Science Academy’s website describes its intended home as a “multi-million pound building”. The academy has been led by Bradford-born teacher Sajid Hussain, an Oxford graduate who now teaches in his home city.

He was unavailable for comment on school funding.

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The Rainbow Primary School is being launched by Bradford-based ATL – formerly known as Asian Trade Link – a not-for-profit enterprise organisation.

ATL’s chief executive Arshad Javed told the Yorkshire Post the school had originally wanted a base in Bradford city centre and could look to move to new facilities in future years. This means the initial cost of refurbishing the Coral College building is set to be followed by larger sums when King’s Science and possibly Rainbow move into new buildings. Mr Javed said he did not know how much had been spent so far.

Mr Ward has questioned how the Government can afford this after scrapping the Building Schools for the Future programme last year – which in Bradford meant 18 schools missing out on more than £300m of Government money.

Mr Ward said: “Money is being spent on these free schools while schools in the city face a repair backlog of more than £50m. A lot of people understand the financial circumstances the Government is trying to deal with but how can the majority of schools in Bradford be told there is less money available for building work while millions can be found to fund what is essentially a pet project of the Education Secretary Michael Gove?”

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A DfE spokeswoman said it would not reveal capital costs of the Bradford free schools because they were opening in “temporary accommodation or require additional building work.”

She added that releasing estimates before signing contracts would effectively “show our hand on what we expect to spend on a project. This could jeopardise value for money for the taxpayer.”