§ Mrs. Chalkerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will estimate the number of local authorities running under-5 education which will not be repeated in 1977–78 and how many children these courses currently accommodate.
§ Miss Margaret JacksonIn January 1976, the latest date for which the information is available, there were 440,683 under-fives receiving education in maintained schools in England with some provision being made by all local
Capital expenditure* Current expenditure† Number of nursery schools and schools containing nursery classes (January) Number of pupils (full and part time) (January) Number of adult staff employed in maintained nursery schools and designated nursery classes in primary schools (January) Teaching staff Nursery assistants† Total £m. £m. 1973–74 … — N.A. 2,259 123,591 3,230§ 4,658 7,888 1974–75 … 16 N.A. 2,491 138,828 3,627 5,090 8,717 1975–76 … 30 40 2,838 158,234 4,165 5,779 9,944 * Information on the number of projects carried out is not collected centrally. † Separate current expenditure figures are not available before 1975–76. ‡ NNEB students, nursery assistants in primary classes other than designated nursery classes, teaching staff whose infant classes contain children under 5 and heads in charge of nursery classes are excluded. Part time staff are included without reduction to a full time equivalent basis. § Estimated. The majority of under-fives in school are in infant classes that also contain older children. It is impossible to extract for this group all the information requested, but in January 1976 there were 282,449 under-fives in infant classes, and it is estimated that they accounted for £68 million of current expenditure in the 1975–76 financial year.