Conservative governments spent £325m creating 67 free schools that subsequently failed or disappeared, many through lack of demand, according to data revealed by a freedom of information request.
The figures from the Department for Education (DfE) show that the government committed more than £10bn to building new schools between 2014-15 and 2023-24, compared with £6.8bn for rebuilding existing schools, which critics say left England with a backlog of crumbling and decaying buildings.
The free schools programme was launched by Michael Gove 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.
While a number of free schools were successful, such as the Michaela community school in inner London, dozens of others became “ghost schools” that foundered or were absorbed by existing schools and trusts.
The data shows that since 2010 more than £325m 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 that 50% of new free school places created between 2015 and 2021 would be surplus capacity within their local areas.
A government source said: “These staggering figures represent the worst excesses of Tory free schools dogma.
“The Tories unforgivably prioritised unnecessary free schools, which subsequently closed, over rebuilding crumbling schools and putting special school places where they were badly needed.
“This Labour government has fixed the foundations of our school system, dealing with the forces outside the school gates that wreck children’s life chances and improving standards in stuck schools.
“Now we’re 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.”
One example of a “ghost school” built under the free schools programme was the Waterside primary academy in Nottingham, constructed at a cost of £11.5m to provide 210 places. The school will never open because of lack of demand, forcing the DfE to pull the plug late last year.
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).
A regional breakdown shows in London £55m was spent on eight free schools that closed or were “rebrokered”, where a school is moved from one academy trust to another. In the West Midlands, £16m was spent on two failed free schools, while 57 existing schools in the region were listed under the DfE’s rebuilding programme.
Meg Powell-Chandler, director of the New Schools Network, argued that the programme had “injected new energy” into England’s school system, allowing fresh thinking and innovations by teachers and leaders.
Powell-Chandler said: “Free schools now outperform other non-selective state schools from the phonics check to A-levels, raising standards, increasing choice and improving outcomes for hundreds of thousands of pupils.
“We urge the government to move forward with the 44 mainstream projects that would transform education in many left-behind areas, as well as the stalled special and alternative provision schools needed to provide vital, high quality specialist places.”
In October last year Bridget Phillipson announced that planning for the 44 schools approved under the programme would be paused while the government carried out an evaluation of their value for money. A decision on their fate is expected soon.
