SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLE-WORTHasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether he can give any explanation of the fact that the Blue Book of the Department, heretofore published during the Session, was last year not delivered to Members until the 5th of November; whether, seeing that the School Inspectors' Reports are dated November, December, and January, he will take measures to insure their reaching the hands of Members at an early period of the Session, before the information they contain is out of date; and, by what date he will be able to present this Session the Annual Report, and the Return corresponding to Paper C—2,302 of last year?
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONThe Return in question contains, in addition to the Inspectors' Reports, the accounts of 2,000 school boards, which have to be audited before presentation. Many of these accounts are not sent to us before July, and the publication of the whole Report is in consequence delayed. I hope that the recommendations of the Statistical Committee, pre- 916 sided over by the right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers), will relieve us of a considerable number of statistics, in which case the Educational Report will be published earlier in the year. Last year it was in the hands of the printers on August 12; but it was not distributed till November by the Vote Office. The Statistical Return for the year is now ready, and the Annual Report we will endeavour to publish earlier in the Session than last year.