§ Sir Ivan LawrenceTo ask the Secretary of State for Education what has been the annual increase in central Government payments to Staffordshire local education authority in each of the past 10 years; what would have been the increase required to remove the effect of inflation; and what approximate savings he expects to have arrived as a result of the transfer of schools to local management.
§ Mr. Robin SquireThe system of local government finance before 1990–91 was different in structure and coverage to the present system of standard spending assessments on which central Government payments to Staffordshire county council are mainly based. The table sets out the annual underlying change in each of the years since 1990–91 in Staffordshire's education standard spending assessment, after allowing for local authority changes of function and inflation. Savings which schools and local education authorities may have made specifically as a result of the introduction of local management of schools are not readily quantifiable by the Department.
Year 1990–91 to 1991–92 increase of 9.3 per cent. 1991–92 to 1992–93 increase of 2.6 per cent. 1992–93 to 1993–94 decrease of 0.5 per cent. 1993–94 to 1994–95 increase of 0.6 per cent. 1994–95 to 1995–96 decrease of 2.0 per cent.