Concerns have been raised about a new “loophole” that allows ministers to fast-track school playing field sales if they help deliver the government’s policy of giving parents free childcare, Tes can reveal.

The change will make it easier to build nurseries on school playing field sites.

Currently, councils wanting to sell off school land have to secure the approval of the independent School Playing Fields Advisory Panel.

However, the government has introduced a new policy that allows ministers to bypass the panel if the land transfer helps deliver its commitment to give parents 30-hours free childcare.

Earlier this month, the Department for Education published the latest tranche of decisions on the disposal of school land, covering decisions taken between March and June 2017.

One decision related to “a disposal of a small area of playing-field land” at St George’s Church of England Aided Primary School in Lincolnshire.

The disposal, signed off in April, was designed to “enable the provision of a nursery to meet the demand and delivery of 30 hours’ free childcare for working parents of three- and four-year-olds in the local area”.

“This project was approved for government funding and the consequent disposal was considered and decided by ministers without consideration by the playing-fields panel,” the decision notice adds.

Change of policy

The Department for Education confirmed there had been a change of policy to circumvent the panel in these cases.

Robert Goodwill, the minister for children and families, said: “As part of our commitment to the 30-hours offer, we have introduced a new policy for handling requests to transfer playing fields to both maintained and private nursery providers.”

Where an application relates to providing extra nursery places in line with the childcare pledge, and where the government has granted funding to increase capacity, ministers can bypass the panel.

The move has alarmed those trying to safeguard school playing fields.

Helen Griffiths, chief executive of the charity Fields in Trust, said: “We are disappointed and concerned to see any disposal of playing-field land bypassing the independent panel set up to scrutinise these applications.”

With decisions about academy land already outside the panel’s remit, Ms Griffiths said the change “creates a loophole” for maintained schools.

Carley Sefton, chief executive of Learning through Landscapes, also said she was “disappointed” about the “fast-tracking of the use of space for nurseries”.

Both Fields in Trust and Learning through Landscapes sit on the playing-fields panel.

‘Creating incentives’

This month, all working parents who earn less than £100,000 per year each will be eligible for 30 hours of free childcare for three- and four-year-olds, doubling the current 15-hours entitlement. It is feared that this will lead to more playing fields being sold off because of the new loophole.

Ms Griffiths said the scale of applications to transfer school land for nursery provision is not yet clear. But with the government scrambling to provide enough childcare places - it has provided £100 million in capital grants since January to boost capacity - there are concerns that more could be in the pipeline.

“[We] would hope that this isn’t a trend that we will see more of as a result of the pressure to achieve nursery provision,” Ms Griffiths said.

Ms Sefton said budgetary pressures could “create incentives” for schools to sell land to private nursery providers, as a means of generating cash.

“The current state of public finances, especially those associated with education, is putting enormous pressure on schools to explore any option of raising funds,” she said.

Mr Goodwill said: “Across the country, we are already delivering the 30 hours offer with great success - over 15,000 children are benefitting from a place and our evaluation shows that providers are committed to offering this to parents.”

This is an edited article from the 1 September edition of Tes. Subscribers can read the full article here. This week’s Tes magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here