§ Lord Baker of Dorkingasked Her Majesty's Government:
How much money they are currently making available through the Standards Fund to support the training of staff working with special educational needs children. [HL623]
§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)In the current financial year, we are supporting £35 million of local education authority expenditure through the Standards Fund in the area of special educational needs. We expect that about £21 million of that money will be spent on training. We are increasing the supported expenditure under the grant to £55 million in 2000–01, of which we expect that around £26 million will be spent on training.