HC Deb 16 October 2001 vol 372 cc1176-7W
Mr. Djanogly

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils in Huntingdon have not had an offer of a secondary school place for September. [6110]

Mr. Timms

Officials from Cambridgeshire education authority confirm that all pupils in Huntingdon have had an offer of a school place. Some children whose parents are unwilling to accept the place offered to them by the authority, and are pursuing an appeal, remain out of school.

Mr. Djanogly

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the class sizes were for(a) primary and (b) secondary schools in Huntingdon (i) on 31 March and (ii) in each year since 1996. [6161]

Mr. Timms

Information on class sizes in maintained primary and secondary schools is derived from returns made by schools to the Department in January each year on the annual schools' census.

The available information is shown in the table.

Average class sizes1 in maintained primary and secondary schools in Huntingdon parliamentary constituency
Maintained primary Maintained secondary
January each year Number of classes Number of pupils Average class size Number of classes Number of pupils Average class size
2001 352 9,698 27.6 323 7,148 22.1
2000 342 9,598 28.1 307 7,029 22.9
1999 344 9,964 29.0 312 6,723 21.5
1998 347 9,916 28.6 312 6,647 21.3
1997 353 9,918 28.1 308 6,563 21.3
1996 345 9,624 27.9 302 6,593 21.8
1 Classes taught by one teacher

The latest class data were recently published in a statistical volume "Schools in England 2001" on 28 September, copies of which are available from the Library, or alternatively can be accessed from the Department for Education and Skills statistical website www.dfes.gov.uk/statistics

Mr. Djanogly

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many lecturer vacancies there were in further education in Huntingdon(a) on 31 March and (b) in each year since 1996. [6162]

John Healey

The information requested is not collected centrally. Information on staff numbers in FE, collected on the Staff Individualised Record (SIR) by the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) and latterly by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), does not include details of vacancies, leavers, salary or grade. However I understand that the Further Education National Training Organisation (FENTO) has given an estimate of UK-wide vacancies for 1999–2000 in its publication "Skills foresight for Further Education in the United Kingdom (January 2000)".

The FEFC collected and published information on staff numbers in the FE sector on an annual basis. The responsibilities of the FEFC have now been taken over by the LSC.