HC Deb 21 December 1999 vol 341 cc552-3W
Mr. Boswell

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many pupils in maintained schools sixth forms are unable to qualify either for(a) child benefit, (b) other social security benefits and (c) student support. [103235]

Mr. Wicks

The information asked for on child and social security benefits is not collected by the Department and cannot be supplied. This Department's School Access Fund is making £6 million available in 1999–2000 and will provide support to about 15,000 post-16 pupils in sixth forms. In addition, we would expect a similar number to be assisted through discretionary payments made by local authorities. In addition we have made £100 million available over the period 1999–2002 to pilot Education Maintenance Allowances to help young people in all forms of education, including sixth forms.

Mr. Boswell

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the annual average cost of full-time education of persons aged 16 to 19 years in(a) maintained school sixth forms, (b) sixth form colleges and (c) other further education colleges in each of the last five years together with his projections for the next two years. [103236]

Mr. Wicks

It is not possible to give average annual costs for 16 to 19-year-olds in school sixth forms, sixth form colleges and other further educational colleges because data on expenditure are not collected in a way that allows the calculation to be made.

The table gives estimates of the public funding costs of a successful level 3 qualification package (i.e. A levels, Advanced GNVQs and Level 3 NVQs) in school sixth forms and colleges. These are for full-time courses and do not take account of any cross-subsidisation within institutions or other sources of funding (e.g. employers), but do take account of the retention and achievement variation across the two sectors.

Sector Funding cost£2 Index3
1995–961
LEA maintained schools 7,060 100
Grant maintained schools 7,110 101
General FE colleges 6,580 93
Sixth form colleges 6,360 90

Sector Funding cost£2 Index3
1996–97
LEA maintained schools 7,380 100
Grant maintained schools 7,630 103
General FE colleges 6,250 85
Sixth form colleges 5,910 80
1 Methodology changed between 1995–96 and 1996–97; these estimates use the same methodology as for 1996–97
2 Rounded to the nearest £10
3 LEA maintained schools = 100

Notes

  1. 1. 1995–96 and 1996–97 are the only two years for which data are available on a comparable basis
  2. 2. DfEE do not project unit output funding estimates

The Government are committed to levelling up funding across post-16 routes over time, and have recently announced an additional £1.56 billion for further education over three years to begin to close the historical funding gap.