§ Mr. BlunkettTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans she has to allow local education authorities to continue to fund under-fives provision directly through the local management of schools formula and to redeem vouchers on behalf of local providers under the nursery voucher scheme. [16284]
§ Mr. Robin SquireOfficials wrote to all chief education officers on 31 January to inform them that the proposed grant for nursery education in respect of local education authority maintained schools will be paid to local education authorities for distribution through their LMS schemes. LEAs will continue to be able to spend what they consider appropriate on provision for under-fives, taking the grant and other forms of revenue into account.
It will be for local decision whether LEAs participate in handling vouchers, or leave it to the schools they maintain.
§ Mr. BlunkettTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list(a) the number of four-year-olds in maintained provision at January 1995,
226Wand (b) hold open meetings for the public; and whether in each case this is (i) under a statutory requirement or (ii) voluntarily. [16029]
§ Mr. Forththe information requested is shown in the table:
(b) the potential deduction from the under-fives standard spending assessment, based on the January 1995 pupil count, (c) the actual deduction agreed with the pilot authorities and (d) the criteria used to adjust the potential deduction to reach the actual deduction, including the pupil numbers involved, for each of the pilot authorities participating in phase one of the voucher scheme. [16285]
§ Mr. SquireThe Department's estimate of the number of four-year-olds in maintained provision in each of the phase 1 authorities in January 1995—taken from the annual schools census—is shown in the table, with the deduction from the 1996–97 standard spending assessment in each case.
227W
LEA Estimated number of 4-year-olds in maintained provision at January 1995 SSA deduction (£ million) Kensington and Chelsea 800 0.7 Wandsworth 2,600 2.4 Westminster 1,100 1.0 Norfolk 6,300 6.8 The pupil numbers underpinning the deductions were adjusted to take into account local education authority comments on the January estimates and the number of four-year-olds in maintained provision in the autumn term 1994 and the summer term 1995 and the number of four-year-old pupils in maintained provision who were not resident in the LEA and who will not receive a voucher in phase 1.