HL Deb 30 March 2000 vol 611 cc91-2WA
Baroness Blatch

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the Director of Qualifications at the Department for Education and Employment wrote to the Chief Education Officers of local education authorities in England in November 1999 about the funding implications of the forthcoming reforms of the post-16 curriculum for secondary schools with sixth-forms; and whether

  1. (a) the "Standard Spending Assessment" for 2000–01 took into account the estimated additional cost of £35 million for implementing the reform;
  2. (b) the Department for Education and Employment expects local education authorities to pass this money on to secondary schools with sixth-forms;
  3. (c) how much of the £35 million has been allocated to each local education authority in England; and
  4. (d) how much this amounts to, per eligible sixth-former, in each local education authority. [HL1623]

Baroness Blackstone

The Director for Qualifications in the Department wrote to Chief Education Officers in England on 29th November 1999, confirming that £35 million, the estimated national cost for 2000–01 of implementing the post-16 curriculum reforms in the schools they maintain, has been included in Education Standard Spending for that year.

The letter made clear that, while it is for individual LEAs to decide how much funding to allocate to their schools, Ministers expect LEAs to do all they can to support the successful introduction of these reforms. They should give careful consideration to the implications of the reforms in their calculation of school budgets for 2000–01 in the light of the funds available within the overall local authority settlement.

Since the acutal costs of implementing the reforms will vary from LEA to LEA and school to school, it would not be meaningful either to break the national figure down into amounts at local authority level, or to seek to calculate a cost per sixth form pupil.

In addition, schools will be receiving £290 million in special grant for 2000–01, depending on their size. This funding will be part of their delegated budgets: those with sixth forms will therefore be able to use it if they wish to supplement funding received through their LEA's allocation formula to implement the post-16 curriculum reforms.