§ Mrs. Bainasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what has been the level of Government expenditure on the provision of (a) junior occupational centres for the mentally handicapped and (b) adult occupational centres in each of the last 10 years.
§ Dr. OwenI have been asked to reply.
Provision of occupational or training centres for the mentally handicapped is the responsibility of local authorities, though the expenditure was relevant for the purposes of general grant for the three years 1964–65, 1965–66 and 1966–67. and for rate support grant from 1967–68 onwards.
Net revenue expenditure in England on these services, including debt charges, for each of the last 10 years for which information is available, was as follows:
19W
Junior Training Centers £million Junior and Adult Training Centers £million Adult Training Centers £million 1964–65 — 6.196 —* 1965–66 — 7.494 —* 1966–67 — 8.854 —* 1967–68 — 10.546 —* 1968–69 6.781 — 6.344 1969–70 7.699 — 7.522 1970–71 8.813 — 9.455 1971–72 —† — 11.879 1972–73 —† — 12.923‡ 1973–74 —† — 16.230‡ * Separate figures for junior and adult training centres for these years are not available. †The Department of Education and Science took over responsibility for junior training centres on 1st April 1971 when they became special schools for the educationally subnormal. It is understood that no separate information is available about the cost for these years. ‡The figures for 1972–73 and 1973–74—unlike those for previous years—exclude the cost of administration which has not been analysed to these services in the local authority returns.