To ask the Minister of Education, pursuant to AQW 30422/22-27 and AQW 30423/22-27, and considering significant budgetary pressures, to outline his assessment of the potential annual savings of approximately £100 million that could be generated from rightsizing the school estate.

In the Independent Review of Education (IRE) report, the Panel stated that their proposed new approach to Area Planning had ‘the potential to create new jointly managed community schools by merging schools from different sectors. Maximum annual savings of approximately £100m could be generated for reinvestment in education’.

The Panel completed a series of purely desktop exercises to arrive at this figure which employed a range of assumptions and exclusions but did qualify this by advising that ‘We must be clear that the modelling process was a desktop exercise that did not take local issues into account and would not therefore represent the ‘real world’ plan that would ultimately be implemented. The figures produced are illustrative only.’

The Panel added that ‘A real-world implementation of a “right-sizing” exercise would be delivered differently and the resulting figures would be different, but this modelling gives a feel for the level of efficiency savings that may be possible’.

The Panel further commented that ‘this reformed network of schools will bring benefits but will require significant capital and resource investment.’

As I have previously stated, the Panel estimated capital costs at £1bn over a 10-year period. That level of funding is not available at present, but I will continue to make the case to the Executive for additional funding to deliver on my priorities for Education.