The government has spent £240m on free schools in areas that don’t need them and the programme risks blowing out its budget due to lax financial management and rising costs, MPs report today.
In a damning evaluation the public accounts committee’s report cites poor value for money in the planning and oversight of free schools, the state-funded institutions introduced by Michael Gove as education secretary since 2010.
It has calculated that the government has spent at least £240m on building 42 schools in areas that had no shortage of school places, while receiving no applications to open primary free schools in half of the areas with a high forecast of need for extra school places.