§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will ensure that the funding per pupil in grant maintained schools for 1999–2000 is increased in line with inflation; and if he will make a statement. [68866]
§ Ms Estelle Morris[holding answer 2 February 1999]: Grant-maintained schools' recurrent funding per pupil for 1999–2000 will be protected at its 1998–99 level in cash terms. Where a grant-maintained school's budget for 1999–2000, as calculated through its local education authority's Fair Funding allocation formula, is greater than its protected level of funding, calculated from its 1998–99 funding per pupil, it will receive that higher amount.
The policy of protection against undue turbulence continues a process of managing the transition of grant-maintained schools' budget arrangements into alignment with those for other schools begun by the previous Government, which set in hand a phased removal of the cash protection applied to the central element of annual maintenance grant.