§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science which local authorities provide educational maintenance allowances, what information he has as to the value of the allowance provided; and what is his latest estimate of the number of families receiving educational maintenance allowances.
§ Mr. MacfarlaneLocal education authorities in England and Wales have discretionary powers under the Scholarships and Other Benefits Regulations 1977 to provide financial asistance in respect of 16–18 year olds at school. My Department does not collect detailed information on local education authorities exercise of these powers. The information shown in the following table has been drawn from the annual returns of expenditure which local authorities are required to make52W and shows total expenditure by authorities. It is not possible to calculate from the returns either the value of the individual allowances or the number f families receiving them.
53W
Expenditure by Local Education Authorities in England in 1979–80 on Allowances to Pupils over Compulsory School Age Attending Schools £000 Inner London Education Authority 685 London Boroughs Barking 5 Barnet 9 Bexley 9 Brent 28 Bromley 14 Croydon 16 Ealing 40 Enfield 1 Haringey 39 Harrow 12 Havering 7 Hillingdon — Hounslow — Kingston-upon-Thames 8 Merton 9 Newham 21 Redbridge 1 Richmond-upon-Thames 6 Sutton — Waltham Forest — Tyne and Wear Gateshead 8 Newcastle upon Tyne 62 North Tyneside 26 South Tyneside — Sunderland 72 Greater Manchester Bolton 37 Bury 16 Manchester 287 Rochdale 16 Oldham 13 Salford 30 Stockport 13 Tameside 16 Trafford 11 Wigan 30 Merseyside Knowsley 49 Liverpool 124 St. Helens 8 Sefton — Wirral 26 South Yorkshire Barnsley — Doncaster 18 Rotherham 16 Sheffield 69 West Midlands Birmingham 56 Coventry 16 Dudley — Sandwell 11 Solihull — Walsall 58 Wolverhampton 14 Non-metropolitan counties Avon 85 Bedfordshire 16 Berkshire 6
£000 Buckinghamshire 12 Cambridgeshire 46 Cheshire 18 Cleveland — Cornwell 6 Cumbria 48 Derbyshire 26 Devon 38 Dorset 61 Durham — East Sussex 24 Essex 68 Gloucestershire 10 Hampshire 225 Hereford and Worcester 2 Hertfordshire 52 Humberside 56 Isle of Wight 4 Kent — Lancashire 132 Leicestershire 7 Lincolnshire 19 Norfolk — West Yorkshire Bradford 55 Calderdale 8 Kirklees — Leeds — Wakefield 33 North Yorkshire 33 Northamptonshire 12 Northumberland 9 Nottinghamshire 91 Oxfordshire 12 Shropshire 16 Somerset 15 Staffordshire — Suffolk 16 Surrey 25 Warwickshire — West Sussex — Wiltshire 32 Isles of Scilly — Total (England) 3,221