Thousands of school modernisation projects across England can start 12 months early after £919 million was brought forward to boost the construction industry, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls and Schools Minister Jim Knight announced today.

More than 100 local authorities in England will share £499m brought forward from 2010-11 to the coming financial year, after bidding for capital investment made available in last November’s Pre-Budget Report.
Mr Balls has also accelerated another £390m of capital funding devolved to direct to every school head in England to invest in smaller projects as they see fit – from building new classrooms or science laboratories to fitting out new gyms or ICT facilities. A further £30m is now available for play areas.

The announcement is a key plank of the Government’s fiscal stimulus package to boost the economy in the current downturn.

It means that overall schools capital spending in 2009-10 will be will now be £7.943 billion – up from under £700m a year in 1997.

Mr Balls also welcomed new measures to support long-term public capital investment programmes by enabling private finance to keep flowing into the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF) and other PFI-funded projects, announced today by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.