Truancy (Hansard, 29 November 1994)

§ Mrs. Anne Campbell
To ask the Secretary of State for Education (1) what is the total cost of the grants from her Department to install electronic equipment in schools to combat truancy;
(2) if she will name the schools and/or local education authorities which have benefited from grants from her Department to install electronic equipment to combat truancy.

§ Mr. Forth
The truancy and disaffected pupils programme of the grants for education support and training—GEST—scheme includes experimentation with different methods of registration, including the appropriate use of information technology, as one of a number of activities which may be funded through grant. In the 1994–95 programme, 35 local education authorities included an IT element in their approved GEST proposals. It is not possible to identify the cost of this element separately. The 35 LEAS were:

Barking and Dagenham

Barnsley

Birmingham

Bradford

Buckinghamshire

Camden

Cheshire

Coventry

Croydon

Derbyshire

East Sussex

Hammersmith and Fulham

Hampshire

Haringey

Hounslow

Islington

Kensington and Chelsea
680
Knowsley

Leeds

Lincolnshire

Liverpool

Newham

Salford

Sandwell

Sheffield

Solihull

Staffordshire

Stockport

Tameside

Wakefield

Wandsworth

Westminster

West Sussex

Wigan

Wolverhampton

§ Mrs. Anne Campbell
To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will name the schools which are fully operating the electronic equipment in schools to combat truancy.

§ Mr. Forth
It is for individual schools and governing bodies to determine whether or not to install electronic equipment to combat truancy. Details of those which have done so are not collected centrally.