§ Mr. HobanTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list for each programme funded by the Department for(a) primary schools and 473W (b) secondary schools introduced in each year since 1997 the funding available in the year the programme started and in each subsequent year; and whether at the end of the life of each programme it was expected that the school would continue to fund that programme. [145613]
§ Mr. Charles Clarke[holding answer 5 January 2004]It is not possible to answer the Question in precisely the way it has been asked. Table 3.2 of the Department's Annual Report sets out the Departmental funding for schools since 1997 and that shows an increase from less than £2 billion in 1998 to almost £9 billion this year. A copy of the Report has been placed in the Library. However, most programmes were not specifically for particular types of schools and local education authorities were free to distribute the grants between schools in their areas.
In 2003–04, the Department stopped paying grant for programmes which were worth £800 million in 2002–03 as part of our commitment to reduce ringfenced funding for schools. However much of this funding relates to time-limited courses that had run their course. Having regard to the £250 million headroom between the £2.7 billion increase in general funding for schools which took account of the overall pressures on schools, including the £800 million grant reduction, we intended that each school should choose for itself whether to continue the programmes previously supported through specific grant.
Over the next two years, we have announced that we will be making available additional non-ringfenced resources to reverse the reductions in the Standards Fund which were previously planned. For 2004–05, schools will generally receive a 4 per cent. cash increase on this year's Standards Fund allocation so there should be no reason for any school to decide on financial rather than educational grounds not to continue a particular programme. In total I am making an additional £820 million extra available over the years 2004/05 and 2005/06.