HC Deb 12 March 2001 vol 364 cc446-7W
Mr. Jim Cunningham

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what action he is taking to reduce paperwork for teachers. [151697]

Jacqui Smith

[holding answer 7 March 2001]: The Government are fully committed to reducing paperwork for teachers in order to allow teachers to concentrate on teaching and raising standards. Examples of our action to do so include: guaranteeing to cut by a third the number of documents, and by a half the number of pages, that the Government send automatically to schools during this school year—last term we reduced paperwork to secondary schools by 60 per cent. and to primary schools by 40 per cent.; harnessing DfEE and Cabinet Office resources to simplify some of the paperwork that schools complete—the first results of this joint project are set out in the "Making a Difference: Reducing School Paperwork" report. This shows that a typical school is expected to save over 200 hours of paperwork every year—equivalent to more than a month's work for one person; and across the school system 4.5 million hours will be saved annually; simplifying radically the operation of next year's Standards Fund—we have replaced bidding, claiming and reporting with a single expenditure returns sheet; we have allowed schools to vire funds between almost all grant headings; we have allowed schools to carry funds over to the end of the school year; and we have introduced monitoring against existing targets; placing model schemes of work on the DfEE website to underpin all National Curriculum subjects at Key Stages 1 to 3—they are entirely voluntary and teachers may use them directly or adapt them as they wish. We also have plans to place model lesson plans on the website in a further effort to reduce paperwork and make the necessary lesson preparation as straightforward as possible; and developing new ICT resources, including the launch of: (a) EASEA—a full electronic in-tray and document archiving service for head teachers, teachers and governors that now has 7,000 registered users, (b) TeacherNet—a single web page offering links to the full range of educational resources on the internet, (c) an internet based "A-Z" of school leadership and management—an electronic encyclopaedia for heads with succinct, practical guidance on a wide range of topics, full search facilities, and links through to reference material on organisational and legal issues, and examples of good practice.