It is the responsibility of each local authority to manage the supply and demand for primary and secondary school places in its area and secure a place for every child of statutory school age who wants one. The Department of Education's role is to allocate capital funding to enable local authorities to provide sufficient school places.
The Department for Education will invest £23bn in school buildings over the period from 2016–17 to 2020–21. Its aims are to make sure that there are sufficient school places to meet growing demand, to address the maintenance needs of the school estate, and to support the Department’s wider reform agenda, in particular by delivering buildings for the expanding Free Schools programme.
The National Audit Office (NAO) will soon publish their study into this issue, which will evaluate the Department's performance in achieving its goals.