§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science on what criteria he has set the spending target of the Inner London education authority at the level of £900 million; and what factors he took into account when reaching his conclusion that spending projects proposed by the Inner London education authority are out of proportion to those of other such authorities with comparable problems.
§ Sir Keith JosephMy right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment set the provisional target of the ILEA for 1985–86 at £900 million, and determined the expenditure level for the authority under the Rates Act 1984 at the same sum.
In the comments that I have made about ILEA's expenditure I have compared the spending on schools by the ILEA with that of the inner city partnership authorities outside London—Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester/Salford and Newcastle/Gateshead — which shows that ILEA's spending per head, after allowing for London salary weighting payments, is between 29 per cent. and 59 per cent. higher than that of these authorities. All these authorities have been designated as partnership authorities because of their difficult problems. The incidence of particular indicators varies, but overall I believe a fair comparison can be made between these authorities. ILEA has a larger ethnic minority population and a greater incidence of poor housing conditions than the other authorities. On the other hand, the percentage of children in families in receipt of supplementary benefit, the level of youth unemployment and of adult unemployment, and the percentage of children in households whose head is a semi-skilled or unskilled manual worker is higher in most of the inner city partnership authorities outside London that it is in ILEA.