HC Deb 10 February 1989 vol 146 cc842-3W
Mr. Andrew Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many academic and non-academic staff in higher education have (i) taken early retirement and (ii) accepted redundancy for each of the past 10 years; and what was the total cost for each year.

Mr. Jackson

The information requested is only partially available.

For universities in Great Britain, 4,400 academic and academic-related staff and 2,770 non-academic staff took early retirement during the currency of the University Grants Committee's 1981–84 premature retirement compensation scheme at a total cost of £153 million. During the present 1986–91 restructuring programme, the Committee estimates that some 2,760 academic and academic-related staff and 870 non-academic staff will take early retirement with compensation at a cost of £122 million.

Estimates of HE lecturers taking premature retirement from polytechnics and colleges maintained or assisted by local education authorities in England are available only as follows:

Number
1982–83 800
1983–84 840
1984–85 950
1985–86 930
1986–87 930

In those years, local education authorities claimed reimbursement from the premature retirement compensation pool of the following expenditure on the costs of prematurely retiring HE staff in their institutions:

£ million
1982–83 3.4
1983–84 6.2
1984–85 6.4
1985–86 8.5
1986–87 10.7

For voluntary and direct grant colleges (excluding the Royal College of Art and Cranfield Institute of Technology), expenditure on redundancy and early retirement of academic and non-academic staff since 1982 has been as follows:

Financial year £ million
1982–83 0.767
1983–84 0.727
1984–85 1.170

Financial year £ million
1985–86 0.782
1986–87 0.697
1987–88 0.695

Mr. Andrew Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the staff-student ratio for each of the last 10 years in(a) universities, (b) polytechnics, and (c) colleges of further education.

Mr. Jackson

The data required are given below. Figures for polytechnics and other maintained establishments cover England and figures for universities cover Great Britain.

Student: staff ratios (SSR)
Universities Polytechnics Other maintained establishments
1978–79 9.3 18.3 27.6
1979–80 9.3 8.4 8.8
1980–81 9.4 8.8 8.8
1981–82 9.7 9.7 9.0
1982–83 10.1 10.3 9.3
1983–84 10.2 11.1 9.4
1984–85 10.3 11.6 9.8
1985–86 10.3 12.0 10.2
1986–87 10.5 12.4 10.6
1987–883 10.7 12.9 10.8
1 Higher education SSR only.
2 Includes Welsh colleges.
3 Provisional.