HC Deb 15 June 1903 vol 123 cc935-6
MR. MARKHAM (Nottinghamshire, Mansfield)

To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether the Nottinghamshire County Council have any power under the Education Act of 1902 to prevent the chairman of the Sutton-in-Ashfield Urban District Council, who is the head teacher of the central Board schools, from serving on the local education committee; and whether the fact of this gentleman being the head teacher of the Board schools disqualifies him from being a member of the Urban District Council.

(Answered by Sir William Anson.) If the local education committee referred to is the committee of the Nottinghamshire County Council, that Council can certainly determine the personnel of its education committee. As Sutton-in-Ashfield is not an autonomous area, there is nothing to disqualify the head teacher of the Board school in that area from being a member of the Urban District Council, unless, in the view of the Board of Education or the County Council, his duties on the Urban District Council should interfere with the proper discharge of his duties as a teacher.

MR MARKHAM

To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether his attention has been called to a circular issued by the Nottinghamshire County Council to the Urban District Councils of this county with reference to the appointment of school managers under the Education Act of 1902 in which the Nottinghamshire County Council have decided that no one shall be eligible to be appointed by the County Council as a manager of any school if a member of his family is employed in that school; and will he state if the Nottinghamshire County Council have any power under the Education Act to enforce this rule, and if not, will he call upon them to at once withdraw this circular.

(Answered by Sir William Anson.) My attention has not been called to the circular in question. There is nothing to prevent a County Council from determining the qualifications or disqualifications for managers chosen by itself, but not for managers chosen by the minor local authority. Under the circumstances stated in the Question I see no reason for the intervention of the Board of Education.