§ SIR WILLIAM ANSON (Oxford University)To ask the President of the Board of Education what steps he proposes to take to ensure that the local education authority will carry out their statutory obligation to maintain and keep efficient the Aberdare Town national schools by paying the salary of the head teacher during the months of September and October, and during the first half of November of the present year, and that the same authority does not establish a different scale of salaries for council and voluntary schools within their area.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) No salary seems to have been in any sense due to the head teacher of the school in question during September. The head teacher only commenced any teaching duties in the school on 1st October. His appointment on that date had not, however, been approved by the local authority, and, therefore, his services in the school during September were not services rendered to the local authority. The appointment of this head teacher was sanctioned by the authority as from 1st November, and the authority are paying the salary of the head teacher as from that date. I do not, therefore, see any ground for intervention on the part of the Board of Education. As regards the concluding paragraph of the Question I must ask the hon. Baronet's attention to the penultimate paragraph of the reply given by me on 26th November last to the hon. Member for Marylebone (East),† to which I can as yet add nothing.