HC Deb 06 March 2003 vol 400 cc1152-3W
Mr. Simmonds

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) if he will make a statement on the proposed funding for schools to employ classroom assistants; when this money will be paid; and how much each(a) primary and (b) secondary school in (i) Lincolnshire, (ii) Nottinghamshire, (iii) Leicestershire and (iv) Boston and Skegness constituency will receive; [95703]

(2) if he will make a statement on the proposed funding for schools to employ persons under the rural area student teacher placement apprenticeship scheme; when this money will be paid; and how much each (a) primary and (b) secondary school in (i) Lincolnshire, (ii) Nottinghamshire, (iii) Leicestershire and (iv) Boston and Skegness constituency will receive. [95704]

Mr. Miliband

The Government are committed to remodelling the school workforce in support of high quality teaching and learning. As part of this process, we are providing sufficient funding to enable schools to recruit at least 50,000 new full-time equivalent support staff over the course of this Parliament. The overall increase in revenue funding for schools, after specific identified pressures have been taken into account, will be £1.1 billion in 2003–04, £2 billion in 2004–05 and £3 billion in 2005–06—schools will be able to use some of this additional funding for workforce reform, including recruiting additional teaching assistants and other support staff members, if they choose to. These increases in funding are in addition to existing school budgets which many schools are already using to remodel the school workforce and recruit new support staff. Decisions about how many support staff to recruit, and the roles they fulfil, will continue to be taken by individual schools.

For 2003–04 we are making available to authorities a total of –268 million (at 50 per cent. grant rate) to specifically cover the costs of recruiting school support staff (including teaching assistants) and extra administrative help, particularly for small schools. Of this £4,254,627 will go to Lincolnshire, £4,343,284 to Nottinghamshire and £3,155,825 to Leicestershire. The grant must be fully devolved to schools but it will be for LEAs to decide how to devolve this funding to schools. We therefore have no information available on Boston and Skegness constituency or on individual schools.

I am unaware of the rural area student placement apprenticeship scheme to which the hon. Member refers.