§ LORD BALCARRES (Lancashire, Chorley)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education under what powers, statutory or otherwise, he secured the Returns upon which the figures in the recent White Paper [Cd. 4406] are based; and why it is not possible for him to have secured under such powers the precise figures required to show the cost of contracting-out schools.
I beg also to ask the President of the Board of Education whether, under Article 47 of the Code, local education authorities and managers of public elementary schools are required to furnish duly all Returns called for by the Board of Education or by Parliament; and why he did not use his powers under that Article to obtain Returns showing the outlays which would have to be incurred by managers of contracting-out schools.
§ MR. RUNCIMANThe Returns referred to are obtainable under Section 95 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, upon which Article 47 of the Code is based. The analysed form of financial statement of the expenditure of local education authorities upon public elementary schools, which was prescribed in consequence of the Act of 1902, does not require the separation of expenditure upon voluntary schools and council schools except as regards teachers' salaries and rent, rates, and taxes upon teachers' houses. Moreover, inasmuch as fuel, material, etc., is frequently obtained by a contract covering the requirements of a large number of 82 schools, it is impossible to require the local authority to separate their expenditure on individual schools or on the voluntary schools in their area as distinct from the council schools. Apart from this point, to obtain information as to a given financial year, the necessary instructions as to the form in which the accounts of local authorities must be kept must be sent out several months before the beginning of the year, and the results could not be available for more than a year and a half after the information was first asked for.
§ LORD BALCARRESUnder these circumstances may I ask the right hon. Gentleman, in view of the fact that he has power to order these Returns in any form he likes, why he stated that he had no such power to ask for Returns for the so-called contracting-out schools?
§ MR. RUNCIMANFor the very good reason that I have no power to ask from local authorities information of which they were not possessed.