Michael Gove's 'lunatic' £400m raid to rescue his free schools vision

Michael Gove's 'lunatic' £400m raid to rescue his free schools vision
Coalition tensions escalate as Liberal Democrats confirm highly damaging leaked information from senior government source

The coalition government has descended into open war on education as senior Liberal Democrats said Michael Gove had raided £400m from a fund that guarantees school places for pupils in order to plug a massive financial "black hole" in his free schools programme.

In a dramatic escalation of tensions, the Lib Dems confirmed highly damaging leaked information from a senior government source, who said that Gove had secretly taken the money from the Basic Need fund for local authorities last December, in the face of stiff opposition from the Lib Dem schools minister David Laws.

The Basic Need budget is given to local authorities to ensure that they can provide sufficient school places for all children in their area and it is crucial when there is heavy pressure on pupil numbers.

The government source behind the revelations tore into Gove, describing him as a "zealot … so ideologically obsessed with his free school experiment [that] he's willing to see children struggle to get suitable school places". This was done, said the source, because Gove had let the free school budget spin "out of control".

Last month this newspaper revealed a secret plan to focus support on failing free schools because of the "political ramifications of any more free schools being judged inadequate".

The Lib Dems said the leaked information from the heart of government was accurate and the secretary of state had pressed ahead in order to try to fill an £800m projected "black hole" in spending on free schools between 2013 and 2016.

A spokesman for Gove did not deny that the Basic Need budget had been raided, but said that the free schools budget was "demand-led". He claimed that providing more money for free schools allowed more places to be created, although the public accounts committee recently reported that a quarter of free schools opened by September 2012 had 20% fewer pupils than planned.

The spokesman added: "The suggestion we are cutting money for new places in areas of need to pay for free schools where they are not needed is totally wrong. These claims pretend that money spent in free schools is not creating new places in areas of need. That is simply not true."

The revelation will take strained relations between the Conservatives and Nick Clegg – a close ally and friend of Laws – to breaking point: there were blazing rows last week over coalition policy on free school meals and on knife crime.

According to the coalition insider, the £400m would be enough to fund 30,000 new school places, and would do much to ease pressure in areas where parents struggle to find places. It is understood that Gove tried to make up the remaining shortfall by using a further £400m underspent from other departmental budgets.

Laws is said to have been strongly against the move because the raid reduced the Basic Need budget for 2015-2017 from £2.75bn to £2.35bn.

The coalition source added: "Everybody knows there's real pressure on school places at the moment and the secretary of state knows better than most. It is nothing short of lunacy to slash the amount of money available for new school places to lavish on free schools. The Conservatives are putting the needs of a handful of their pet projects ahead of the requirements of the other 24,000 schools in the country.

"Michael Gove is so dogmatic about free schools, he essentially places no spending restrictions on them at all. The free schools budget is out of control and the secretary of state would rather sink another £800m into the black hole, rather than rein in spending."

Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said the Lib Dems could not run away from blame: "The Free School programme had the Lib Dem stamp of approval from day one. They're as much to blame for the failings as the Tories. Gove's decision to transfer this funding away from areas in need of new primary places into the Free School programme is an act of ideological vandalism."

A number of free schools, which can be set up by parents and others outside the supervision of local authorities, have been given the lowest ranking by Ofsted in recent months, raising concerns about the programme's future.

This month's damning report on The Hawthorne's free school in Liverpool means twice as many free schools have been given Ofsted's "inadequate" rating as other state schools. Analysis by the Times Educational Supplement has shown that 11% of free schools were inadequate, compared with 6% of all state schools, although a higher proportion of free schools – 15% – were also judged outstanding. Overall, 45 Ofsted reports on free schools have been published, of which seven were outstanding, 23 good, 10 required improvement and five inadequate.So far 174 free schools have been opened, with a further 116 in the pipeline. Ministers have earmarked £1.5bn for the free schools project by March 2015 – and £1.1bn has already been spent. An £800m deficit would be huge for a government trying to rein in spending. Among the schools judged as "requiring improvement" in recent months (the second lowest Ofsted ranking) is Greenwich free school, whose co-founder is Jonathan Simons, the head of education at Michael Gove's favourite thinktank, Policy Exchange.

Bedford free school, previously praised by Gove as "academically ambitious", was also found to require improvement earlier this year. Ofsted insiders said they feared the reporting of more failing free schools would follow in the weeks and months to come.

The spokesman for Gove added: "From 2015, funding to councils for new school places will rise by more than £200m a year. On top of this, investment in free schools will provide tens of thousands of new places in areas of need.

"Indeed the vast majority of free schools - more than seven in 10 - are in areas with a shortage of places. This investment in free schools is entirely in addition to the rising basic need funding for councils which we announced in December.

"Free schools are hugely popular with parents and are more likely to receive top ratings from Ofsted than council-run schools. So it is absolutely right that, where they are needed, new places are created in free schools."

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/10/gove-lunatic-raid-free-schools

This is crazy. People will be screaming that there are not enough places because of immigration and it will be because of this. Stupid, stupid man!

Michael Gove warned to bring free schools spending under control
Concerns expressed by senior Treasury officials and at ministerial level over the cost of free schools



Michael Gove has been warned that the budget for free schools must be brought "back under control" by Lib Dem chief Treasury secretary Danny Alexander and officials at the Exchequer, government sources have told the Guardian.

Amid escalating coalition tensions over education spending, the sources said very senior Treasury officials had raised concerns with the Department for Education (DfE) about the cost of free schools, which the Liberal Democrats claim has led to a £800m black hole.

"This isn't just David Laws [a Lib Dem schools minister] and the Liberal Democrats who are very concerned about the free schools budget spiralling out of control," a senior government source said.

"The Treasury has now made it crystal clear to Gove and the Department for Education that they want to sign off all future rounds of spending on free schools and won't do so until the capital budget for free schools is back under control."

The education secretary's free schools policy is now being put under much greater scrutiny by Alexander, who is in charge of all government spending.

A separate Treasury source added: "Concern has been expressed by very senior Treasury officials and at ministerial level over free schools in a whole variety of ways, in meetings and in correspondence."

Over the weekend it emerged that Lib Dems were complaining that Gove had raided the Basic Needs budget for primary school places by £400m to help prop up the free schools programme.

Meanwhile, Conservatives have been briefing against Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's pledge to bring in free school meals this autumn for five-to-seven-year-olds, arguing it is too expensive. Each side is claiming the other is spending too much on vanity educational schemes.

A Department for Education spokesman insisted the financial situation had not altered: "There has been no change in the process. The Treasury has always signed off free school spending."

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said on his Twitter feed on Sunday that the government was facing a national crisis in primary places entirely of its own making.

The free schools policy was devised by Gove. The new schools are independent of local council control and are set up by parents, teachers or charities. They have their own admissions policies and the right to employ teachers without qualifications.

The row between the Conservatives and Lib Dems began as a war of words after Gove's former adviser Dominic Cummings launched a personal attack on Clegg, saying he was a revolting and self-obsessed character who cared only about his image.

He also accused the deputy prime minister of demanding "hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money" for his "latest absurd gimmick" whenever he gave a speech.

Clegg replied, saying Cummings had "obviously has anger-management issues" and hit back at "slightly loopy ideologues like him" in the Tory party who wanted to impose ideological experiments on the school system.

However, it has now escalated to a series of full-blown leaks from within the heart of the coalition. On Friday, private emails obtained by the BBC showed Gove had warned that giving an extra £80m to help implement Clegg's free school meal programme risked affecting the quality of teaching and learning.

Then, over the weekend, a senior Lib Dem source branded Gove a "zealot" for transferring £400m from the basic need budget to help plug the £800m black hole in the free schools scheme.

After days of public rowing, David Cameron stepped in to defend Gove, telling the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that: "What the government is doing is spending £5bn in this parliament expanding the number of school places.

"Part of that is actually investing in free schools, most of which in the primary schools are in areas of high need, and they're providing good new school places for people inside the state sector. I think you should judge the government on its results in education."

Labour said Gove's use of the money for free schools was "ideological vandalism" but the Lib Dems were equally guilty of this charge.

Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary, said: "The free school programme had the Lib Dem stamp of approval from day one. Last year, the number of infant class sizes with more than 30 children doubled.

This from a Tory party that promised smaller class sizes at the last general election. Gove's decision to transfer this funding away from areas in need of new primary places into the free school programme is an act of ideological vandalism."

A spokesman for Gove said it was wrong to suggest the DfE had cut money for new places in areas of need in order to pay for free schools.

"These claims pretend that money spent in free schools is not creating new places in areas of need. That is simply not true," the spokesman said. "From 2015, funding to councils for new school places will rise by more than £200m a year."

The department argues that Gove's new free schools will provide tens of thousands of places where they are needed – although an analysis by the Guardian published on Saturday showed half of the primary free schools scheduled to open this autumn still have unfilled places.

Of the 26 due to open in September, 13 had unfilled places, with some schools, such as the Essa Primary in Bolton offering parents inducements in the form of free uniform and sports kit to persuade them to sign up. Labour's Tristram Hunt said the number of schools with unfilled places represented a "damning indictment" of the overall policy.

A highly critical report on free schools was published last week by the Commons public accounts committee, chaired by Labour MP Margaret Hodge, which concluded that free schools were not being opened in areas of greatest need and that £240m had been spent opening free schools in parts of the country that had no shortage of classroom places.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/11/michael-gove-warned-to-control-free-schools-spending

He's really dropped a bollock on this one!