�800m school cash brought forward

Ed the builder: Primary school modernisation is to be accelerated

School modernisation projects worth �800m are being brought forward as part of the government's drive to revitalise the economy.

The Chancellor's pre-Budget report promised to accelerate planned spending to "renew primary and secondary schools" in England.

It will mean local authorities will have until Christmas to ask to bring forward school spending plans.

These will be smaller-scale building projects rather than new schools.

The Chancellor Alistair Darling announced the acceleration of �3bn worth of public spending plans - in areas such as motorway building, housing and education.

Spending push

For schools, it means that half of �1.6bn capital spending that had been allocated for 2010-11 will now be available to be spent in 2009-10.

This is not the wider Building Schools for the Future school building project, but is about revising the timetable for four strands of school modernisation programmes.

The Primary Capital Programme, announced earlier this month, set out �7bn worth of plans to refurbish primary schools in England, to be phased over several years.

Under the revised terms of the pre-Budget report, there will be 41 local authorities with approved primary school projects worth �280m which will be brought forward from 2010-11 to 2009-10.

There will also be �470m available to bring forward for smaller projects to improve schools, under the Local Authority Modernisation Grant.

Voluntary-aided schools will have funding of �220m brought forward, including for creating extra school places and to improve physical access to schools.

Special educational needs and disabilities funding worth �460m will also be brought forward, including building facilities for delivering the new Diploma qualifications.

The government wants to push through this spending as soon as possible - and local authorities are being asked to identify before Christmas any refurbishment projects that can be brought forward.

Decisions on spending bids will be made by mid-January and funding will be released by April.

There will also be �442m brought forward for improving colleges and universities, including scientific research facilities.

"This decision means that building or refurbishment projects, particularly in primaries, already costed, designed and ready to go can now start as soon as possible," said the Children, Schools and Families Secretary, Ed Balls.

"The vast bulk of the projects that can be brought forward will be small-scale modernisations and refurbishments - giving immediate cash injections to thousands of small and medium-sized businesses fitting out these new facilities."

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne criticised the spending plans and associated borrowing as a "huge unexploded tax bombshell timed to go off underneath the future economic recovery".

Responding to the announcement, Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the NUT, said the revised spending plans "will give much needed improvements to many schools".