Government allocates £22bn for school upgrades

The government has announced it will allocate £21.9bn to upgrade classrooms and school facilities.

The secretary of state Ed Balls and schools minister Jim Knight said the money would be given to local authorities to raise standards of classroom, arts, sports and ICT facilities over the next three years.

The settlement includes £1.9bn to kick start the Primary Capital Programme, which was promised an additional £200m investment by the chancellor in Wednesday’s pre-budget report.

Allocations for primary schools include pilot projects in 23 local authorities in 2008-9 and extra resources for all local authorities from 2009.

The government said £9.3bn would go to the Building Schools for the Future programme and £2.93bn will be directed to local authority maintained schools.

Knight told parliament that 76 local authorities, yet to be involved in BSF, would share £608m over two years - £8m each.

He added that the government was investigating ways of achieving ‘zero carbon’ new school buildings for the BSF scheme, academies and one-school pathfinders, which have been allocated £110m for carbon neutral schemes.

Balls said: “Top-class and well-designed facilities are central to raising standards and helping teachers inspire our young people.

"Every child and community should have high quality classrooms and cutting-edge ICT, music and sports facilities.”