§ 30. Miss Fookesasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether, in the light of experience of its operation, he will amend Circular 2/70, Capital Programme, under which certain costs for key services such as education are charged to the locally determined schemes pool to the detriment of the latter.
§ Mr. Graham PageI am considering this matter as part of the review of the circular which is now in progress but if any service is taken out of the pool the size of the pool would be correspondingly reduced.
§ Miss FookesMay I point out that it causes considerable embarrassment if the locally-determined schemes pool is somewhat small and a local authority such as the London Borough of Merton has to dip into it, in effect financing capital projects? This is a serious problem.
§ Mr. PageWe are looking at the circular again and the rules for next year, but the intention of the new system was that instead of the Government deciding what authorities should spend on furnishing and equipping a school, the discretion would be left to them within the total of their allocation. I notice that the London Borough of Merton was given an extra allocation of £200,000, following its representations on this subject, to meet its commitments in the matter of furnishing schools in its area.