§ Mr. Don FosterTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) what estimate he has made of the proportion of the response to his White Paper "Excellence in schools", which related to each of the chapters upon which comment was sought; and in each case, approximately what proportion of comment expressed(a) support for and (b) opposition to the approach outlined or described; [16055]
(2) how many responses were received to the White Paper "Excellence in schools"; and of these how many (a) were on the tear-off forms in the summary document, (b) were written responses, (c) were in some other form, (d) addressed specifically the questions posed in the White Paper and (e) ranged beyond the questions posed. [16056]
§ Mr. ByersWe received over 8,000 responses to the White Paper of which some 3,500 were written responses to the full version. The remainder were a combination of tear-off slips and other forms of communication.
Of the 3,500, 138 were from Local Education Authorities and about 600, 2,100 and 700 came from representative organisations, schools and individuals respectively. A breakdown between grant-maintained and LEA-maintained schools is not currently available.
Most responses addressed issues from more than one chapter and many ranged beyond the specific questions posed. There was broad support for the contents of the White Paper.
We continue to consider all the responses in detail.