The coming schools crisis

Michael Gove’s school reform is being overwhelmed by the surging demand for school places, I argue in my Telegraph column today. When the Education Secretary first draw up his ‘free school’ programme, he said in a Spectator interview that his aim — while radical — was simple. 

‘In your neighbourhood, there will be a new school going out of its way to persuade you to send your children there. It will market itself on being able to generate better results, and it won’t cost you an extra penny’

In London, foreign-born mothers account for half of all births. The surge in immigration changed not only the British workforce but school demographics too. Pressure for school places is highest where immigration has been the highest: Bradford, London, etc. A collective failure by our political class to discuss immigration has rendered them blind to the problems: the supply of GP clinics, housing, schools etc.

Gove’s free school programme led to the opening of just two dozen schools last year and 89 this year, of which 21 are primaries. Let’s compare the supply to what would be needed, if the number of schools was to rise in proportion to the expected number of pupils:

So what’s holding them back? Gove has won his battle with the unions — his problem is a battle with Whitehall. In opposition, he promised a bold licensing authority that would say ‘yes’ to any new school, so they could open in converted office blocks as they do abroad. This has not materialised, and would-be new school providers are easily blackballed by the local authorities who want to strangle the experiment at birth.

My personal hope was that expansion of capacity in England would come from the new Academies — Gove has had huge success converting half of secondaries to independent ‘Academy’ status. Except they’re not independent: HM Treasury is refusing to let them borrow. Without the ability to borrow, companies don’t expand: withdraw bank funding, and see what would happen to the economy. Treasury control freakery is alive and well, and stopping the expansion of the very best schools. Pickles’ department jealously protects its power over planning (and that of councils). If new schools can be vetoed on the basis that parents will clog up the roads with the morning school run, can any of them expect to pass? And remember Francis Maude’s promise to hand over unused government buildings to new school providers? I understand nothing has been done about this.
 
Having an ‘omnishambles’ government means more than bad headlines and free terror suspects. It means that a simple government policy — pushing through the urgent supply of new schools — cannot be introduced across government departments. Ultimately, it is the duty of 10 Downing St to bang heads together. This isn’t happening, the ‘new schools’ are a trickle rather than a flood. So what would it take for Cameron to treat the issue with some urgency?

I suspect the Prime Minister has never met a mother who has been told by the council that her child has been denied his 1st, sometimes 2nd and 3rd, preference for a school place. I have met such women — they develop a certain homicidal streak. Rejections are sent out each April, just in time for a May 2015 election. By then, hundreds of thousands of mothers will have been refused their first choice of school by Cameron’s government — they’ll be nursing their wrath, to keep it warm for election day. Given Cameron’s trouble with women voters in general, this is an image that should focus his mind. As he’ll discover, Angry Birds is a game the whole nation can play.