§ MR. GARDNER (Berkshire, Wokingham)To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can state the nature and extent of the assistance he proposes to provide to enable local education authorities to meet the deficiency in their first year's receipts from Government grants.
(Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The Board of Education have indicated the arrangements they are making for expediting the payments of the grants. Thus it is proposed that a large portion of the new aid grant should be paid to the local education authorities on or immediately after the appointed day, and that the remainder should be issued a few weeks later; and that the block grant, instead of being paid in one sum at the end of the school year, should be paid in quarterly instalments with the I fee grant, so far as the Education Vote 895 permits. Notwithstanding these arrangements there will, I fear, he cases where temporary assistance will be required, and I have in preparation a Bill to enable the local education authorities to borrow for the purpose.