§ Mr. StrawTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many copies of(a) "Grant Maintained Schools: Questions Parents Ask", and (b) "School 288W Governors, How to Become a Grant Maintained School," have been printed; what was the cost; to whom they have been sent; and what was the cost of distribution.
§ Mr. MacGregorThere have been two editions of "School Governors: How to Become a Grant-Maintained School": 100,000 copies of the first edition were printed at a cost of £22,750; 50,000 copies of the second edition were printed at a cost of £12,690. Copies of the first edition were sent to all maintained schools: it was not the practice at that time to keep detailed postage costs for each publication separately. It cost £870 to post an initial distribution of the second edition to all maintained secondary schools.
A total of 240,000 copies of "Grant-Maintained Schools: Questions Parents Ask" have been printed at a cost of £28,600. It cost £3,675 to post an initial distribution to all schools which are eligible for grant-maintained status.
As is generally the case with DES publications, initial copies of "Questions Parents Ask" and of both editions of "How to become a Grant-Maintained School" were sent for information to major organisations with an interest in the subject, including the local authority associations, every chief education officer in England and the teacher unions.