§ Mr. HobanTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to the answers of960W 27 November 2001, Official Report, column 773W, and 4 December 2001, Official Report, column 257W, on schools, for what reason her Department (a) holds information on the number of schools which have been allocated money for repairs and (b) does not hold information on the number of new schools which have been built. [22363]
§ John Healey[holding answer 11 December 2001]: We hold information on the numbers of schools benefiting from the new deal for schools programme funded from the windfall tax, since it was a specific programme for repairs where funding was allocated in response to bids. It was aimed at addressing the worst of the condition backlog in schools in 1997. It has now been replaced by programmes that are allocated to local education authorities and schools by needs-related formulae, so that decisions on which repairs to undertake are made locally. One such formulaic programme is new deal for schools devolved formula capital grant, which is made available principally to fund capital repairs to school buildings. Since this is allocated to all schools, we can be assured that, for the first time, every school has a budget to support high priority repair work.
It is for local education authorities to determine the need for additional schools places in the maintained sector and, where necessary, build new schools. The Department maintains a record of all currently open schools. For the Department, in addition, to collect and hold detailed information on capital investment at individual school level would be overly bureaucratic for the Department, local authorities and for schools.