§ Mr. Eyreasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is able to announce his decisions on local authority higher education provision in 1984–85 and the 8W distribution of the 1984–85 capped advanced further education pool in the light of the national advisory body's advice; and if he will make a statement.
§ Sir Keith JosephI have today written to the chairman of the committee of the national advisory body accepting its advice in its entirety on student numbers and programmes of academic work in local authority higher education in 1984–85. I have also accepted the NAB's advice on the associated financial allocations for local education authorities from the 1984–85 AFE quantum. Letters are today being sent to local education authorities and institutions notifying them of my decisions. Copies of my letter to the NAB committee chairman and of the NAB's report and detailed advice on individual local authorities' and institutions' academic plans, together with details of the 1984–85 pool allocations, have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The NAB's advice to me was in the context of the AFE quantum for 1984–85 of £580.5 million which I announced in the House on 17 November. This figure represented a significant increase in expenditure compared with previous plans, intended both to allow local authority institutions to provide for more students in 1984–85 than the NAB committee had earlier judged that they could reasonably admit, and to assist the NAB in facilitating effective rationalisation within LAHE in 1984–85 and later years. As I indicated then, this implies continuing reductions in lecturer numbers and unit costs across the LAHE sector.
Within this framework, the NAB recommended a slightly higher full-time and sandwich student intake in 1984–85 than in 1982–83 thereby providing for the age participation rate nationally to be maintained at around its present record level. A key feature of the NAB's recommendations is a significant shift in subject balance towards science, engineering and other areas of particular value to employers together with a strengthening of technician level work.
These measures represent a substantial redirection of the efforts of the sector, and of institutions within it to meet more closely the needs of industry, commerce and the professions. The recommendations also include a measure of rationalisation, the need for which is reinforced by resource constraints and the prospective decline in student numbers. I endorse the further work relating to 1985–86 proposed by the NAB, with its continued emphasis on rationalisation.
The principles underlying the distributon of the capped AFE pool for 1984–85 in association with the target numbers of students proposed by the NAB, which I have now endorsed, represent a further refinement of the methods developed in recent years. The resulting allocations will place the greatest pressure for economies on the high spending institutions and afford a substantial measure of protection to the more economical institutions.