HC Deb 07 September 2004 vol 424 cc1001-2W
Mr. Liddell-Grainger

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what action he is taking to give head teachers more control over school budgets. [186470]

Mr. Miliband

Governing bodies and head teachers are already free to deploy the resources allocated to them through local education authorities' school funding formulae in accordance with their own assessment of their schools' needs and priorities. From April 2006, individual schools will receive guaranteed three-year budgets and this will give them even more control of their own resources by enabling them t# take a much more strategic approach to their budgets.

In addition to recurrent funding, each maintained school in England is also allocated direct capital funding which it can use for its investment priorities. This year, a typical secondary school will get about £85,000 of its own capital, and a typical primary school about £25,000.

Mr. Liddell-Grainger

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has to conduct research into how school budgets are spent. [186471]

Mr. Miliband

The DfES is actively involved in a programme of research into how schools use their budgets. This includes a detailed analysis of school expenditure patterns from the Consistent Financial Reporting data, which will provide schools with an indication of how their own expenditure compares to the overall national picture. This work complements the existing Schools Financial Benchmarking web site that allows schools to compare their income and expenditure with other similar schools.

As well as analysis of expenditure information, qualitative analysis will be carried out in schools to identify the process by which schools allocate their resources to develop better advice.

Finally there is a work stream in progress developing measures of school efficiency and productivity. These methods look specifically at the relationship between the way in which a school allocates its resources and the outcomes it achieves given the context in which it operates.