Children's Services (Hansard, 11 February 1997)

§ Mr. George Howarth
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has to implement the recommendations of the York university study into ethnicity and the cost of children's services. [14501]

§ Sir Paul Beresford
The Department of Health plans to take forward York university's work on the standard spending assessment for children's social services during 1997.

§ Mr. Howarth
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what recognition is made in the Government's allocation of funding to local authorities of the provision by some authorities of universal nursery education; and if he will make a statement. [14505]

§ Sir Paul Beresford
The element of the standard spending assessment related to the education of under-fives is based on the resident population aged 0 to four an indicator of additional educational needs, adjustments for variations in cost and boundary changes, and a deduction related to the number of four-year-olds in local authority provision in a recent year. The SSA formulae are the subject of discussions each year with representatives of local government.

§ Mr. Howarth
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what research he has commissioned into the effect of the area cost adjustment on social service provision for(a) children and (b) the elderly; what conclusions were reached in such research; and what proposals he has for changes as a result of that research. [14507]

§ Sir Paul Beresford
I commissioned an independent review of the area cost adjustment element of standard spending assessment during 1996. It proposed a new method of calculating area cost adjustments which could be used for all local authority services. The review's proposals were not implemented for 1997–98 SSAs. Further work to consider the concerns that remain about the area cost adjustment will be carried out during 1997.

§ Mr. Gordon Prentice
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his oral statement of 3 February,Official Report, column 677, what assumptions underlay his provision of a 3.6 per cent. increase in education spending. [14793]

§ Sir Paul Beresford
In deciding each year on appropriate levels of total standard spending in each of the main service blocks—including education—we take into account the spending pressures facing local authorities as well as the scope for efficiency savings and what the country as a whole can afford. We discuss these spending pressures with representatives from local government. Local spending decisions, however, are entirely a matter for individual local authorities which have considerable freedom to decide on their own priorities in the light of local circumstances.