HC Deb 23 October 1990 vol 178 cc180-1
6. Mr. Pike

To ask the secretary of State for Education and Science what assessment he has made of the effect local management of schools is having on small schools in rural areas; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Michael Fallon)

We have said that we shall monitor the effect of local management of schools carefully. LMS was introduced for the benefit of all schools. We expect small rural schools to share in those benefits.

Mr. Pike

Does the Minister recognise that small rural schools have particular problems arising from LMS? Will he see that local education authorities are able to continue to give the support necessary to ensure a balanced and fair education in those schools, or do the Government intend to put a nail in the coffin of small rural schools?

Mr. Fallon

There is ample scope for protecting small schools through the formula. Local education authorities may take account of the higher unit costs of delivering the curriculum in small schools and the salary costs in schools with fewer than 10 teachers. Lancashire does both.

Mr. David Nicholson

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has just said about small rural schools and for the written answers that he has given me in the past two days about the way in which LMS will apply to such matters as school meals and the recruitment of rising-fives. Will he confirm that if parents at a school agree to support, and are prepared to pay the cost-effective price for, a proper school meals system, LMS will help that process?

Mr. Fallon

I agree with my hon. Friend that there is much scope for further delegation of the current costs of supporting schools and of a number of services.

Sir Cyril Smith

Does the Minister agree that local management of schools would be better performed if the management were thoroughly representative of all shades of opinion in the community? Is he aware, for example, that in my authority, every secondary school governor is a Labour councillor and that not one Conservative or Liberal Democrat councillor has been elected to the board of a secondary school in the whole constituency? Do the Government have any plans to ensure that in future, local management is more representative of the whole community?

Mr. Fallon

We have no further plans, although I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman. We have already ensured that a larger number of governors are parent governors and that there is a representative on the governing body from the business community.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment to his new post after two years' enforced silence in the Whips Office. Does he draw any conclusions from the fact that Labour authorities have kept back more of schools' budgets from the schools than have Conservative authorities? Does he agree that it is part of Labour's continuing negative and destructive attitude to education? Labour is against any form of reform, be it city technology colleges, grant-maintained schools, assisted places or the local management of schools.

Mr. Fallon

Only about 60 per cent. of the education work force is teaching. There are innumerable advisers and bureaucrats—an army of suede shoes—and, for example, Iancashire holds back about 23 per cent. of its schools budget, about £78 million, or £110,000 per average Lancashire school.