§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many bids have been received from schools in the London Borough of Sutton since 1 May 1997 for centrally allocated spending, broken down by(a) capital funding, (b) Standards Fund funding and (c) other funding; how many of such bids have been (i) successful and (ii) unsuccessful; and if he will make a statement. [134887]
§ Ms Estelle Morris[holding answer 6 November 2000]: Centrally allocated funds, including the Standards Fund and funding for capital work, are usually distributed on a formula basis or as a result of bids from local education authorities, not via bids from individual maintained schools. Non-maintained special schools can bid directly for capital grant, but there are no such schools in Sutton. Until March 1999 grant maintained schools bid to the Funding Agency for Schools (FAS) for capital grants on a rolling programme. Between May 1997 and March 1999, 46 bids from grant maintained schools located in Sutton were successful. The FAS maintained no record of the number of unsuccessful bids.
Since 1997–98 total Standards Fund allocations in Sutton have increased from £1,428,000 to £4,406,000 while capital fund allocations have increased from £5,755,000 to £9,767,000.