§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN () Worcestershire, E.To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he will circulate a Memorandum showing the total amount of grant which would have been payable to each local educational authority, and the amount which this sum would have represented per child in average attendance at the schools of the said authority, for the year 1906–7, if the scheme of grants described in Cd. Paper 3945 had then been in force, and if no schools had contracted out.
(Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I am having a Memorandum prepared showing, as far as possible, the amount which each local education authority would have received in the financial year ending on 31st March, 1908, if the new scheme of grants had been in operation. The results must, however, be to some extent based on estimates and not on actual figures, inasmuch as a considerable portion of the audited financial statements of local education authorities for the year 1906–7, upon which the calculation of the grant for loan charges is based, have not yet been received or examined. It may also be necessary for the same reason to ignore the limitation of the grant to 75 per cent. of the local authority's expenditure, the financial effect of which will not in any case 551 be great and will be still less in 1909–10, the earliest year in which the new system could become operative.