Education Reform (Hansard, 11 January 1988)

§ Sir Dudley Smith
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make it his policy to use the differential formula for converting students into full-time equivalents contained in schedule 7 to the Education Reform Bill as a significant factor in the determination of funding for further education.

Mr. Jackson
The determination of funding for further education is a matter for local education authorities. The Government take account of a projection of full-time equivalent student numbers in drawing up their plans for spending on non-advanced further education by local authorities collectively. They also convert actual student 47W numbers to full-time equivalents in the assessment of grant-related expenditure (GRE) which is one determinant of the distribution of block grant. In both these contexts the Government currently use the same multipliers as are listed in column 3 of the table shown in paragraph 2 of the schedule. But the schedule serves to provide a method of converting part-time enrolments to full-time equivalents for the purposes of clauses 82, 83, 90, 100 and 102 of the Bill. The Government are not committed to the continued use of the same multipliers in expenditure projections or GREs.

§ Sir Dudley Smith
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what are the reasons for the differential formula for converting students into full-time equivalents contained in schedule 7 to the Education Reform Bill.

Mr. Jackson
The formula provides a method for calculating the full-time equivalent enrolment number of an institution — a concept used in the Bill to decide whether an institution will enter the sector to be funded by the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council, or whether the local education authority will be required to delegate to an institution which it will continue to maintain responsibility for managing the institution's budget.
Full-time equivalent weightings are used because students on different levels of course and modes of attendance require different amounts of teaching time and expenditure. The weightings shown in schedule 7 are consistent with the relative teaching hours for different modes of attendance revealed by the Department's annual monitoring survey; and they were developed in consultation with the National Advisory Body and the local education authorities.

§ Mr. Malcolm Bruce
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what recent representations he has received concerning the Education Reform Bill as it affects Scottish universities.

Mr. Jackson
We have received many representations about the university provisions in the Education Reform Bill, which apply equally to universities in England, Scotland and Wales.