§ Mr. Kinnockasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list in the OFFICIAL REPORT the criteria employed in determining the entitlement of teachers to stress area allowances.
§ Mr. ArmstrongThe criteria which the Burnham Committee has decided should be used by local education authorities in selecting schools in priority ranking order for the purposes of the payment of special allowances to teachers in schools in areas of social deprivation are as follows:
- (i) the social and economic status of the parents of children at the school;
228 - (ii) the absence of amenities in the homes of children attending the school;
- (iii) the proportion of children in the school receiving free meals and belonging to families in receipt of supplementary benefits under the Ministry of Social Security Act 1966;
- (iv) the proportion of children in the school with serious linguistic difficulties;
- (v) except in the case of special schools, the proportion of retarded, disturbed and handicapped children. This is not to be interpreted as being confined to children who have been specifically "ascertained" as retarded, disturbed or handicapped.
Local education authorities may also have regard in determining their priority order to the extent to which schools call on the various supporting services on behalf of their pupils and to the buildings and amenities of the schools concerned.
The Burnham Committee will determine where the cut-off point for each local education authority's list shall be, consulting individual authorities in order to achieve the maximum possible degree of uniform application of the scheme.