§ Mr. Hindasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the Lancashire county council education capital allocation for 1987–88.
§ Mr. DunnLancashire's prescribed capital allocation for 1987–88 was £5,994,000 against the authority's spending plans of £18,800,000. Its allocation for capital expenditure by governors of voluntary aided and special agreement schools was £793,000; in addition, grant aid on up to £415,000 of expenditure on projects which started 39W before 1985–86 will be met, if claims are submitted during 1987–88, from a central reserve, giving a total of £1,208,000 against plans of £1,284,000.
Individual local education authorities' allocations of prescribed capital expenditure on schools for 1987–88 were calculated, on the basis of information supplied by the LEAs, by giving priority to committed expenditure (up to a level previously notified to the authority), expenditure on projects required to meet basic need, and expenditure required in connection with the removal of surplus school places. Although these priorities had been made clear in the Department's letter of 30 June 1986 to all local education authorities, less than one third of Lancashire's planned schools capital expenditure for 1987–88 fell into the high priority categories, against two-thirds of its planned expenditure for 1986–87. In particular, the authority's commitments were £2.8 million compared with the provisional indication of £5 million previously notified to them. What remained for allocation after these priorities had been met was distributed between authorities by means of a formula based on the information supplied by LEAs about the incidence of substandard accommodation and on each authority's planned expenditure in other categories relating to schools.
For further and higher education, priority was given to committed expenditure (on the same basis as for schools), tertiary projects arising from statutory proposals to remove surplus places, and the provision of computers and technical equipment. Again, Lancashire's planned expenditure in the priority categories was low, and its allocation reflects this.