HC Deb 26 February 2001 vol 363 cc386-8W
Mr. Brady

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what estimate he has made of the number of schools with sixth forms which(a) have not received funding for the revised sixth form curriculum in the current financial year and (b) will not receive funding for the next financial year. [151241]

Ms Estelle Morris

£35 million was included in Education Standard Spending for 2000–01 and a further £60 million was included for 2001–02. This funding is unhypothecated: it is for local education authorities to decide, in consultation with their schools, how much should be allocated to each of their schools for the Qualifying for Success reforms of the sixth form curriculum. Information on this is not collected centrally. All secondary schools received £40,000, £50,000 or £60,000 in direct grants in 2000–01, and will receive £50,000, £60,000 or £70,000 in 2001–02.

Mr. Brady

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) what estimate he has made of the net change in revenue funding for each former grant maintained school for each of the last three academic years and for the next academic year; [151242]

(2) what estimate he has made of the number of maintained schools for which the revenue funding per capita will be less (a) for the current academic year than for the last academic year and (b) for the next academic year than for the current academic year. [151245]

Ms Estelle Morris

No such estimates can be made on the basis of the information available to the Department. Nationally, however, funding per pupil has increased by over £300 in real terms under the present Government, and it will increase by a further £150 per pupil for 2001–02. Under the last Government, funding per pupil fell by £60 in real terms between 1994–95 and 1997–98. There will be further increases in funding following the year 2000 Spending Review, with a further £370 per pupil over the three-year period, taking the total increase to nearly £700 between 1997–98 and 2003–04.

Former grant maintained schools are entitled to minimum levels of funding per pupil, derived from the amounts of annual maintenance grant per pupil which they received in 1998–99, with an adjustment for inflation. They have further benefited from the introduction of direct grants to schools in 2000–01: a typical primary school receives £9,000 and a typical secondary school £40,000, rising in 2001–02 to £20,000 and £60,000 respectively.

Mr. Brady

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what estimate he has made of the number of local education authorities which will be unable to access standards fund money as a result of an inability to supply match funding. [151244]

Ms Estelle Morris

We expect over 99 per cent. of the match funded allocations to be taken up. However, final information is not yet available.

Mr. Brady

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will indicate for each local education authority the dates on which(a) profit-related pay funds were paid to the local education authority by his Department and (b) those funds were passed on by the local education authority to schools. [151246]

Ms Estelle Morris

There are no profit-related pay funds. However, the Government are providing special grant to cover the additional salary costs of classroom teachers being paid on point 1 of the upper pay scale having crossed the performance threshold. Under Special Grant Report (No. 70), local education authorities were paid monthly instalments of grant on 6 December 2000, 12 January 2001 and 14 February 2001. The December instalment represented four months of grant backdated to September 2000.

Further instalments of grant will be made under Special Grant Report (No. 74) which requires that we pay local education authorities by the l5th of each month.

We do not hold data centrally of when local education authorities pass these funds on to schools. We have given clear guidance that local education authorities should adjust teachers' salaries or, where the authority is not the payroll provider, schools' budgets as soon as administratively possible following receipt of the results of assessments in individual schools.