§ Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked the President of the Board of Education if he will state the total public expenditure upon education in England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, respectively, and for elementary and secondary education, respectively, of the Imperial Government and of local authorities in each of the years 1875, 1885, 1895, 1905, and for the years for which the information is available since 1905?
§ Mr. RUNCIMANI must confine my reply to my hon. Friend's question to a statement with regard to those portions of public expenditure for education with which the Board of Education are directly concerned, that is to say, education in England and Wales. As regards expenditure in Scotland and Ireland, information should be sought from the Government Departments respectively concerned. Moreover, it must be remembered that, in addition to the expenditure on education in England and Wales that comes under the supervision of the Board of Education, very considerable sums are expended on education by other Government Departments,e.g., the Home Office, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Treasury, and the Board of Agriculture, to whom respectively application should be made for information regarding their expenditure for education. A note as to some of the main beads of expenditure by other Government Departments follows the table. Subject to the limitations I have indicated, I have endeavoured in the table to give the information asked for. But it must be remembered that the division between elementary and other forms of education is somewhat artificial and the corresponding division of expenditure can, therefore, only be approximate. Moreover, the form of the question appears to exclude all expenditure on education from other sources than Exchequer funds and rates, and the figures given must not, therefore, be regarded as covering the whole field of expenditure on public education in England and Wales. As regards the term "secondary education," it 435W is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to disentangle expenditure on secondary schools from expenditure on other forms of higher education, and I have, therefore, for the purpose of the table, taken the term "secondary education" as intended to include all education other than elementary. The "public expenditure" of local authorities has been interpreted to mean all sums raised by rates locally levied under the Education Acts which are expended on education, and not to include endowments, fees, and other sources of income. The expenditure out of rates by boards of guardians for the education of Poor Law children has also been omitted.
The expenditure set out in column (1) for the years 1874–5, 1884–5, and 1894–5 is the total expenditure of the Whitehall branch of the Education Department, and therefore includes, besides the expenditure on elementary education, all expenditure in connection with the training of teachers for public elementary schools (including grants for pupil teachers), which since 1902 has been regarded as other than elementary, and is so treated in the five concluding lines of the table below.
The expenditure set out in column (3) for the years 1874–5, 1884–5, and 1894–5 is the total expenditure for England and Wales of the Science and Art Department.
The expenditure set out in column (3) includes, as regards all the years, expenditure in connection with museums, Geological Survey, the Royal College of Art, the Royal College of Science till 1907, and subsequently the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and the Solar Physics Observatory.
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PUBLIC EDUCATION.—England and Wales. Financial Year. Elementary. Other than Elementary. Total Expenditure of the Education Department and the Board of Education. Expenditure of Local Authorities out of Rates. Total Expenditure of the Science and Art Department and the Board of Education. Expenditure of Local Authorities out of Rates. (1) (2) (3) (4) £ £ £ £ 1874–1875 … … 1,356,746 588,846 205,987 — 1884–1885 … … 3,180,512 2,353,477 292,765 — 1894–1895 … … 6,660,749 3,987,790 567,515 73,767 1904–1905 … … 11,047,687 8,660,891 1,187,803 822,854 1905–1906 … … 11,212,579 9,229,952 1,401,238 1,340,692 1906–1907 … … 11,623,311 9,491,702 1,551,428 1,547,863 1907–1908 … … 11,412,815 Not available 1,864,651 Not available 1908–1909 … … 11,468,543 Not available 2,020,362 Not available The following are some of the main heads of expenditure on education in England and Wales by Government Departments other than the Board of Educations:
- (1) The Home Office:—(a) For industrial schools, day industrial schools, and reformatories, (b) For teachers in prisons.
- (2) The War Office:—Army schools for children of soldiers; schools such as the Duke of York's School for educating soldiers orphans and also for training teachers for the Army schools: and all establishments for military education.
- (3) The Admiralty:—Expenditure on naval education, besides various forms of dockyard schools for artificers, engineers, and so forth.
- (4) The Treasury:—(a) Grants to universities and university colleges. (b) Grants in aid of secondary schools in Wales under Section 9 of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, 1889.
- (5) The Board of Agriculture:—Expenditure on various forms of agricultural and dairying education.
For information on these points I must refer my hon. Friend to the Departments concerned. Account must also be taken, in any calculation of expenditure by the Imperial Government on Education, of disbursements from the Local Taxation Account:—
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- (a) In the form of grant in compensation for abatement of rates under the Agricultural Rates Act (Section 2). (b) In the form of the residue under Section 1 of the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, known as the "Whisky Money."
Note.—(1) Before 1902 the amount of the Whisky Money expended on educational purposes was at the discretion of county and county borough councils. (2) It is doubtful whether contributions by county councils under Section 24 (2) (a) and (b) of the Local Government Act, 1888, should not be included as part of the expenditure out of Imperial Funds.