HC Deb 26 May 1994 vol 244 cc311-2W
Mr. Don Foster

To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list the schools, by local education authority, that had not had their budgets delegated under local management of schools schemes by(a) 1 January and (b) 1 April; and if he will express the number of such schools as a percentage of all schools.

Mr. Forth

The precise information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost. We estimate that something over 1,000 county and voluntary schools did not have delegated budgets on 1 January 1994. All primary and secondary schools have had delegated budgets from 1 April 1994 except in a few cases where delegation has been withdrawn or deferred by the LEA. All special schools are due to have delegated budgets by 1 April 1996 although many will have them at an earlier date.

Mr. Don Foster

To ask the Secretary of State for Education with whom the responsibility lies for deciding whether to(a) hire a teacher, (b) carry out a repair and (c) replace items of furniture in schools with delegated budgets under the local management of schools.

Mr. Forth

Within the resources available to it, the governing body of a school with a delegated budget is responsible for determining the schools staff complement and selecting teachers for appointment. The local education authority, except in the case of aided schools, whose staff are normally employed by the governors, must appoint the persons selected unless they fail to fulfil any of the statutory requirements relating to qualifications, health and physical capacity or conduct. The respective responsibilties of governing bodies and LEA for building repairs and maintenance will depend on the terms of the LEAs LMS scheme, although governors will normally be responsible at least for internal decoration and other work of a non-structural kind. In the particular case of voluntary-aided and special agreement schools, repairs to the exterior of the buildings are the statutory responsibility of governors, who may apply for grant aid from the Secretary of State. Furniture for an LEAs schools will in general be provided by the LEA through its capital programme, but governing bodies are free to make purchases with funds from their delegated budgets if they so wish.