HC Deb 18 November 1976 vol 919 cc694-5W
Mr. David Hunt

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many surveys, questionnaires, censuses or similar investigations have been carried out, either wholly or partly, at public expense, on behalf of or by her Department or by any public bodies for which she is responsible in 1974, 1975 and in 1976 to date, respectively, specifying their nature and purpose and the total cost to public funds.

Mr. Oakes

My Department conducts about 40 basic annual statistical inquiries addressed to local education authorities and to independent schools and colleges in England and Wales—mainly for administrative and planning purposes—the results of most of which are summarised each year in " Statistics of Education", Vols. 1–5, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. The cost of these inquiries, of three annual inquiries addressed to libraries, and of all the supporting statistical services in my Department was about £758,000 in 1974, £957,000 in 1975 and £1,136,000 in 1976. Corresponding statistics for universities in the United Kingdom, summarised in "Statistics of Education", Vol. 6, are the responsibility of the University Grants Committee and their cost was about £103,000, £116,000 and £122,000 in each year, respectively.

Additionally, my Department commissioned the following sample surveys from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys at a total cost of £211,000:

1974 None.
1975 Further and Higher Education Intentions of Pupils and Students aged 16 and 18.
Undergraduate Students' Income and Expenditure.
1976 Postgraduate Students' Income and Expenditure.

Twenty-three other ad hoc statistical inquiries were reported by my Department to the survey control unit of the Central Statistical Office in the three years 1974–76, including those which formed part of research projects commissioned by my Department from outside bodies. The extraction of further details for all these would entail a disproportionate cost. By far the largest was the third sweep—at age 16—of the National Child Development Study—1958 cohort—mounted by the National Children's Bureau in 1974 with an approved joint grant of £285,000 from my Department and DHSS spread over the years 1973–77.