§ Mr. Butterfillasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list those measures taken by his Department since 1979 which have benefited specifically education in the area which includes the borough of Bournemouth.
§ Mrs. RumboldMost Government resourcing of education is in the form of rate support grant, which LEAs are free to spend as they wish. Prescribed capital expenditure, also at the discretion of LEAs, totals £34.4 million for Dorset since 1981 and has enabled the LEA to include in its building programmes three major building projects at further education colleges in the Bournemouth — Poole area, costing over £5 million. Direct capital allocations for voluntary schools in Dorset total £2.4 million since 1982 and current building work includes provision of a new Anglian primary school at Muscliffe.
Dorset has benefited from various Government schemes involving direct financial assistance for the in-service training of teachers and others and its annual grants for this purpose have increased from about £70 million in 1983 to nearly £300 million in 1987. Nearly £.1.3 million will be made available in 1987–88 under the new LEA training grants scheme. Since the inception of education support grants in 1985, Dorset has been particularly successful in its bids, covering many categories of activities, including, in the schools field, projects to enhance the management and curricula of rural primary 422W schools and to develop pupil records of achievement and, in adult education, the establishment of the Dorset training consortium and a current project to develop educational provision for the unemployed.