1. How is the planning system addressing the
shortage of school places in London?
The example of the London Borough of Bromley
David Kingman
PhD Researcher, The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
2. Introduction
“…a combination of rising pupil populations, spiraling building
costs and lack of available land is putting increasing pressure
on London boroughs to provide places for pupils”
London Councils (2014)
3,302
3,993
2,884
3,282
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
4,000
4,500
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Projected number of pupils at state-funded primary and
secondary schools in England, 2009-2024, thousands
Primary Pupils Secondary Pupils
3. Theoretical Framework – “New Institutionalism”
Key concept: The “Organisational Field” – a complex
problem affecting multiple stakeholders to which they each
bring different beliefs, approaches and goals (Hoffman, 1999)
Powell (2008) argued that the explanations for how different
actors within an organisational field behave can be sorted
into three groups:
• Coercive – i.e. based on formal rules and laws;
• Normative – i.e. based on dominant attitudes and patterns
of behaviour within each institution, and;
• Cultural – i.e. instilled by the fundamental design or
purpose of an institutional structure.
4. Institution Function Policies
Central
Government –
The Department
for Education
• (Pre-2010) Distributes funding to LEAs; formulates
national education policy
• (Post-2010) Provides direct funding for new schools
and school places; approves or rejects proposals for
new schools; supplies land and buildings for new
schools
• 2010 Academies Act
• 2011 Education Act
• Permitted Development (PD) rights allowing the
conversion of almost any other type of building
into a free school for its first academic year, and
permanent conversions of offices, hotels,
residential institutions and community facilities
into permeant free schools without full planning
applications
Local Education
Authorities
(LEAs)
• (Pre-2010) Legal duty to provide a school place for
each child; responsible for day-today funding and
operation of most schools; directly builds new schools
• (Post-2010) Legal duty to provide a school place for
each child; no formal role in approving or running free
schools or academies
• Differing degrees of acceptance towards the
Academies and free schools agenda
Local Planning
Authorities (LPAs)
• (Pre-2010) Plans for social infrastructure within local
area by creating a Local Plan; grants planning
permission for new schools and school expansion
• (Post-2010) Same functions as previously, but
authority is constrained by central government
permitted development rights
• Set out local development policies in the Local
Plans covering each area, including allocating
sites for schools
Education
Providers
• (Pre-2010) Day-to-day running of individual schools,
mostly under direct control of local authorities
• (Post-2010) Many schools freed from local authority
control; encouraged to be entrepreneurial
• Almost 4,500 existing schools convert to
academy status by 2015
• 318 new Free Schools created by 2015
5. Literature Review: “laisse-faire localism?” (Hodgson and Spours, 2012)
Maps showing the administrative geography of Regional Schools Commissioners (left) and Local Education Authorities (right)
6. Methodology
• 8 semi-structured, face-to-face qualitative interviews with key
individuals in the main case study area
• Expert or “elite” interviews (Dexter, 1970) - 8 individuals were all
representatives of the 4 key institutions who comprised the
organisational field
• Data from interviews were coded in accordance with Powell (2008)’s
classification of factors which explain institutional behavior
• Methodological triangulation (Bryman, 2011) was employed by
assessing what the interviewees said against my analysis of a set of
official documents and datasets to test its degree of subjectivity
7. Case Study: The London Borough of Bromley
Maps showing the Bromley’s position in relation to the rest of the UK and London (left) and the area of Bromley which is
covered by either Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land (right)
11. Conclusions/Recommendations
• Post-2010 planning and education reforms contain several fundamental tensions which
have led to increased conflicts between different institutional actors:
1. Between central government control of creating new schools and local government
control of spatial planning;
2. Between the idea of comprehensive spatial planning which predominates within LPAs
and the normative belief in improving public services through competition which
predominates in central government;
3. Between local governments’ statutory duty to provide school places and central
government’s monopoly on approving new schools
4. Between the idea of decentralising power over running schools to local communities
and the way that this has been achieved by increasing the powers of central
government and markets at the expense of elected local governments.
• The case study of Bromley suggested that LEAs are finding new ways of working with
other institutions to fulfill their statutory duties, but the division of responsibilities and
resources between central and local government needs to be better balanced in order to
prevent a shortage of school places from occurring.
12. • Bryman, A. (2011) “Triangulation” In: Lewis-Beck, M., Bryman, A. and Liao, T. (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Social Science
Research Methods Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications
• Clarke, N. and Cochrane, A. (2013) “Geographies and politics of localism: The localism of the United Kingdom's
coalition government” Political Geography, 34, 10–23
• Dexter, L.A. (1970) Elite and Specialized Interviewing Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press
• Education Select Committee (2015) Academies and free schools: Fourth Report of Session 2014-15 London: House
of Commons
• Feigin, J. R., Orum, A. M., and Sjoberg, G. (1991) A case for case study Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press
• Hodgson, A. and Spours, K. (2012) “Three versions of ‘localism’: implications for upper secondary education and
lifelong learning in the UK” Journal of Education Policy, 27, 2, 193– 210
• Hoffman, A. (1999) “Institutional Evolution and Change: Environmentalism and the U.S. Chemical Industry” The
Academy of Management Journal, 42, 4, 351-371
• London Councils (2014) Do the Maths 2014 London: London Councils
• March, J. and Olsen, J. (1984) “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life” The American
Political Science Review, 78, 3, 734–749
• Powell, W. (2008) “The New Institutionalism” In: Clegg, S. and Bailey, J. (eds.) International Encyclopaedia of
Organization Studies London: Sage, 977–978
• Rodriguez-Pose, A. and Gill, N. (2003) “The global trend towards devolution and its implications” Environment and
Planning C: Government and Policy, 23, 333351
• Schoolsweek (2015) Regional Schools Commissioners: your guide to who, what and where... London: Schoolsweek
• Servillo, L.A. and Broeck, P. (2012) “The Social Construction of Planning Systems: A Strategic- Relational
Institutionalist Approach” Planning Practice & Research 27, 1, 41-61
References
Notas do Editor
Originally written as MSc dissertation project
Addresses a number of important questions in relation to planning for urban infrastructure and the power relationships within urban governance networks
The relationships between different actors were explored using a New Institutionalist framework
- Since early 2000s, England (especially London) has experienced a substantial ”baby boom” which is putting increasing pressure on English local authorities to deliver new school places
A 2015 Department for Education (DfE) forecast of pupil numbers in England shows that between 2009 and 2024 they expect pupils attending state-funded schools at primary level to rise by 691,000, and at secondary level by 398,000
Key point: Rise in pupil numbers has coincided with dramatic changes to government policy covering both planning and education, which have significantly altered the division of powers, responsibilities and resources among the assemblage of actors which is responsible for creating new school places
- A regime of four key institutions were identified which have to interact within the “organisational field” for the delivery of new school places within England;
Key point (1): This organisational field has been severely disrupted since 2010 by the passage of the 2010 Academies Act, which created academies and free schools – schools would no longer be funded and operated directly by local government, but would instead be funded by central government and have a much higher degree of autonomy, following a logic of stimulating market competition in school provision
Key point (2): Processes of decentralisation tend to divide resources and responsibilites unevenly between different tiers of governance (Rodirguez-Pose & Gill, 2002); following these reforms the legal duty to provide enough school places remains with local authoriites, but the power to create new school places now rests with central government
The London Borough of Bromley was chosen as the case study because it presented an interesting combination of problems which are fairly typical of other London boroughs (a significant need for extra school places and a shortage of potential sites) alongside additional sui generis factors, such as the borough’s large amounts of protected green open space and its particularly rapid adoption of the academies and free school agenda
Bromley Council acts as both the LEA and the LPA within Bromley, but these two functions are delivered by separate teams of officers and operate within different legislative and policy contexts
Planning context: ”Bromley Paradox" – largest borough by area but one of the smallest totals of developable land because of Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land
Education context: LEA policy closely follows national policy; rapid adoption of academies and free schools and heavy political priority placed on offering marketised school choice to parents
Key Point (1): The main finding which hadn’t been anticipated by the Institutionalist theoretical framework was that all the interviewees considered dominant public attitudes within Bromley to be extremely hostile towards any new development, particularly housing and schools; it was a widely-held belief that affluent older residents use Bromley’s powerful Residents’ Associations to dominate the local planning system through their elected councillors; this goes back to another aspect of New Institutionalism, Servillo and Broeck’s (2012) “Institutional Frame” - a background influence which affects decision- making for all the institutions and impacts on their relationships;
Key Point (2): As anticipated, the interviews did reveal that the different institutions within this organisational frame are influenced by a range of different factors (summarised in Venn Diagram); major tension between Bromley LEA (driven by coercive pressure of statutory duty to provide a school place for every child), Bromley LPA (driven by a cultural belief in comprehensive spatial planning) and Conservative political actors at both the central and local levels (influenced by normative beliefs about the superiority of market-based competition in school education)
Key Point (3) – Spatial governance has become the key locus of the tensions between the different institutions; chart above shows the formal roles of different governance actors within the system of creating free schools; next chart indicates informal roles which have emerged during the initial phase of the new policy
Key Point (4) – The planning system has enabled the London Borough of Bromley to retain a much greater influence over the creation of new schools than the central government had intended because both education providers and the central government often consults with them on finding new sites, including ones under Council ownership (as indicated within chart). However, they can only influence the location of new schools indirectly, and have few formal powers which would enable them to force a new school to locate in an area where there is a shortage of places or prevent a new one from being located where there is an over-supply.