School Funding (Hansard, 17 July 2003)

§ Mrs. Gillan
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much extra money his Department has provided to schools in(a) Chesham and Amersham and (b) Buckinghamshire to help ameliorate the effects of this year's school funding problems. [123914]

§ Mr. Miliband
The funding of schools in Chesham and Amersham is a matter for Buckinghamshire local education authority (LEA).
My Department has made available additional grant of £28 million in 2003–04 to ensure for all LEAs an effective increase of 3.2 per cent, per pupil after taking into account the ending of a range of Standards Fund grants this year. As Buckinghamshire local education authority's per pupil increase after the ending of the Standards Fund grants was 3.3 per cent., it did not receive additional grant.
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§ Bob Russell
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how much funding was allocated to(a) Essex Local Education Authority and (b) other local education authorities for turbulence factors in respect of schools with a large number of children of military personnel in each of the last five years for which figures are available; [125894]
(2) what his policy is on providing additional funds for the turbulence factors at schools with a large number of children of military personnel; [125895]
(3) what plans he has to provide financial assistance for schools with a large number of children of military personnel. [125896]

§ Mr. Miliband
The Department for Education and Skills does not allocate any funding to any local education authority for the specific purposes of addressing turbulence for schools with large numbers of children of military personnel.
We recognise that turbulence in pupil numbers can have an impact on school budgets and pupil attainment. A local military presence is one cause, influxes of asylum seekers are another. Local authorities are able to include factors in their funding formulae to provide additional funding to take account of high turnover of pupils during the year. Essex local education authority has such a factor.
We believe further work on mobility should be done on the basis of data from the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) so that it is possible to consider in an informed way whether a mobility indicator might be included in the AEN part of the formula when the three-year formula freeze ends in 2006–07.