Claire Perry today welcomed the announcement by Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP, Minister for Schools, that an additional £2.8m has been secured for the children from military families who will relocate to the Salisbury Plain area under the Army Rebasing programme.
This follows lengthy campaigning by Claire and Baroness Scott, leader of Wiltshire Council to ensure that local schools have sufficient funding in place to plan properly for school age children relocating with their families from Germany.
Commenting, Claire said:
“The Army Rebasing programme will see over £1bn of investment locally, and new schools or extensions are being built across the South Wiltshire area. But head teachers including Susan Raeburn at Bulford Kiwi made me aware several years ago that the traditional process of “per pupil funding following an annual census” made it difficult for local schools with large increases in pupils due to re-basing moves – the money required to plan and recruit teachers was coming too late.
After several years of campaigning by me and Baroness Scott, the DfE has agreed that our schools need more help to deal with this specific local challenge and I am absolutely delighted that we have secured this funding to support the brilliant work of our local schools and teachers.”