§ Mr. PawseyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement of progress to date on approving local education authorities' schemes of local management of schools.
§ Mrs. RumboldLEAs were required to submit their schemes by the end of September, and all did so. It is a great tribute to LEAs that they have got their schemes in on time. I have been impressed by the quality of what I have seen and the hard work that has been put into schemes by authorities, head teachers and governors.
We have now announced our approval decisions on 24 schemes. In each case we have proposed minor modifications, all designed to ensure that our three key objectives of local management are met. These are: the maximum delegation of resources to schools; the funding of schools through a clear, open and objective formula; and the minimum constraints on governors' use of their new powers.
19WThe first 24 LEAs whose schemes we have announced our intention to approve from next April are;
- Barking and Dagenham
- Bedfordshire
- Calderdale
- Cambridgeshire
- Cheshire
- Cumbria
- Essex
- Harrow
- Havering
- Kent
- Lincolnshire
- Newcastle
- Norfolk
- Northamptonshire
- Oxfordshire
- Rotherham
- Sandwell
- Solihull
- Suffolk
- Sunderland
- Surrey
- West Sussex
- Westminster
- Wiltshire