Pre-school Education Initiative

HC Deb 30 January 1996 vol 270 c732W

Mr. Duncan Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made with arrangements for the evaluation of the pre-school education initiative as proposed in the invitation to local authorities to submit pilot schemes issued by his Department last month. [13127]

Mr. Raymond S. Robertson

The Scottish Office is today inviting several research institutions to respond to a specification for an implementation evaluation of the pilot. The remit for this evaluation is wide. It demands that the evaluators look at the experience of parents and providers; examine the way vouchers are used and their effects; and look at the patterns of provision that emerge and at the growth in places that is achieved. We are serious about learning from the pilot; and we are demonstrating that in what we do.