As far as I recall, the interview is not a ?second round? but is required if the applicant has given incomplete or insufficient details in their application. No applications have been rejected at this stage.
What remains unclear is the point of adding to the pile of approved applications that have no site or prospect of a site. The TES reported on April 13: Half of 2012 free schools have not secured a site:
Michael Gove?s flagship free-schools policy was said to be in ?disarray? by its critics this week, as it was revealed that just half of the schools due to open this September have secured a site. The education secretary announced in October that 79 of the state-funded independent schools had been approved to open at the beginning of the next academic year, but doubts are now being expressed over how many will be ready in time.
Responding to a parliamentary question put forward by shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg at the request of TES, schools minister Nick Gibb admitted that only ?around half? of the free schools had found a suitable site. Finding premises is proving particularly difficult in London and the South East, where buildings and land are expensive and hard to come by.
?The government?s approach to school buildings is chaotic,? Mr Twigg said. ?First, the government cut the education building budget by nearly two- thirds - twice the average of other departments. Second, they have delayed their own so-called priority building programme three times. And now their free schools policy is floundering. I urge the government to think again and address the real need in the system, where there is an urgent shortage of primary school places,? he added.
More than £330 million has been spent on the government?s free schools and academies programmes since the coalition came to power, figures released by the NUT show. . . The union also revealed that 126 full-time equivalent staff at the Department for Education are working on the free schools programme, despite just 24 being open . .