PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(10 September 2026)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what capital budget allocations are available to Worcestershire County Council to accommodate future (a) primary and (b) secondary school places in the current financial year.

Asked by:
Dame Harriett Baldwin (Conservative)

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities. The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data.

Worcestershire County Council was allocated a total of just over £16.5 million across the 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years to support it to provide new mainstream primary and secondary school places. It was not allocated funding in 2026/27 and 2027/28 because its pupil forecasts and school capacity data, gathered in Summer 2024, indicated there was no need to fund further places by September 2028.

This is in addition to housing developer contributions that Worcestershire can, and does, secure to create new places where demand is driven by new housing.

Answered by:
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