HC Deb 18 March 1994 vol 239 c884W
Ms Glenda Jackson

To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list the number and costs of his Department's inquiries into student union funding since 1979.

Mr. Boswell

Since 1979, the Department's inquiries into the funding of student unions have included work preparatory to the introduction of new arrangements for the funding of student unions from the academic year 1981–82, following criticism of the previous arrangements by the Committee of Public Accounts in 1978; and work related to the Government's current proposals for student union reform which followed the survey of student unions published by the Department in 1989. It is not possible to disaggregate the costs of these activities from other work of the officials involved.