§ Sir John Edenasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, whether he is satisfied with the accuracy of the information provided by local education 267W authorities about expenditure on school books; and if he will take steps to ensure that figures returned under this heading are calculated on a basis common to all authorities.
§ Dr. BoysonComprehensive returns of expenditure are made annually by local authorities to the Department of the Environment in order to inform rate support grant settlements and the Government's expenditure plans. These returns are in a common form agreed with the local authority associations and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. They show separately recurrent provision for books and for educational equipment and materials. The returns may not, in all cases, reflect the precise distribution of expenditure between these two categories, both because the allocation of these funds is often left to the discretion of individual head teachers, and also because the distinction between the two categories is not clear-cut. Furthermore comparisons between individual authorities will be affected by the extent to which the authorities make use of local public library services for their schools.
Hence the returns provide an accurate account of expenditure by individual local education authorities on books, materials and equipment together, and an indication of the proportion of the total spent on books. This meets the requirements of my right hon. and learned Friend.