---

Teachers

Mr. Callaghan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many full-time teachers are currently employed in schools in England. [8077]

Mr. Robin Squire: There were 353,717 full-time qualified teachers employed in maintained schools in England in January 1995, the latest date for which information is available.

Advisers

Mr. Callaghan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many civil servants and educational advisers are employed in her Department. [8076]

Mr. Robin Squire: The total number of permanent civil servants and educational advisers employed in the Department for Education and Employment on 1 October 1995, the most recent date for which statistics are available, is 5,812.

Local Education Authority Spending

Mr. Hinchliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what has been the total discretionary award expenditure as a percentage of LEA spending for each authority in England and Wales. [7989]

9 Jan 1996 : Column: 149

Mr. Forth: Information is not available in the form requested. the following table shows local education authority expenditure on discretionary awards in the academic year 1993-94 and total net recurrent local authority expenditure on education in the financial year 1993-94. Because the figures for discretionary awards expenditure and net recurrent expenditure are not directly comparable, it is not possible to calculate the percentage of total expenditure which is attributable to discretionary awards.

Information on total local authority expenditure on education in Wales is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

Expenditure by local education authorities: England and Wales£000s

	Expenditure on discretionary awards (54), (55) in the academic year 1993-94	Total expenditure on education(56) in the financial year 1993-94
Corporation of London	24	2,010
Camden(57)	--	70,054
Greenwich	349	110,016
Hackney	991	119,730
Hammersmith and Fulham	178	67,408
Islington	184	95,862
Kensington and Chelsea	637	48,861
Lambeth	127	132,499
Lewisham	1,073	112,439
Southwark	273	110,026
Tower Hamlets	467	128,142
Wandsworth	1,162	90,517
Westminster(57)	--	68,714
London residuary body	76	--
Barking and Dagenham	299	63,996
Barnet	127	106,941
Bexley	409	78,360
Brent	497	112,369
Bromley	714	76,855
Croydon	609	129,818
Ealing	204	120,724
Enfield	357	108,683
Haringey	16	111,348
Harrow	103	90,142
Havering	654	78,692
Hillingdon	193	66,271
Hounslow	386	89,813
Kingston upon Thames	982	47,035
Merton	397	69,814
Newham	473	117,182
Redbridge	455	101,002
Richmond upon Thames	461	51,921
Sutton	157	50,665
Waltham Forest	246	104,155
Birmingham	1,725	444,977
Coventry	438	143,835
Dudley	175	104,926
Sandwell	198	126,253
Solihull	343	78,015
Walsall	537	109,676
Wolverhampton	67	113,059
Knowsley	816	75,815
Liverpool	2,200	215,497
St. Helens	507	78,433
Sefton	958	120,072
Wirral	2,066	143,280
Bolton	985	106,916
Bury	364	71,109
Manchester	2,363	206,603
Oldham	823	101,566
Rochdale	819	86,296
Salford	143	87,880
Stockport	1,071	108,433
Tameside	452	82,741
Trafford	411	78,788
Wigan	524	122,115
Barnsley	412	81,927
Doncaster	754	128,186
Rotherham	1,002	109,264
Sheffield	692	187,044
Bradford	2,181	216,312
Calderdale	399	73,383
Kirklees	2,300	167,279
Leeds	3,231	280,208
Wakefield	504	121,896
Gateshead	762	83,661
Newcastle upon Tyne	890	113,508
North Tyneside	1,031	67,445
South Tyneside	647	62,279
Sunderland	1,296	120,975
Isles of Scilly	16	1,306
Avon	2,738	371,747
Bedfordshire	2,073	216,199
Berkshire	1,825	271,276
Buckinghamshire	924	256,096
Cambridgeshire	920	233,434
Cheshire	5,363	394,667
Cleveland	2,027	240,535
Cornwall	2,574	184,286
Cumbria	9,523	175,302
Derbyshire	3,491	351,727
Devon	4,726	366,006
Dorset	6,429	206,766
Durham	2,381	246,541
East Sussex	2,131	242,739
Essex	4,830	469,539
Gloucestershire	2,467	165,592
Hampshire	8,219	549,758
Hereford and Worcester	2,036	247,999
Hertfordshire	2,549	374,316
Humberside	3,462	367,792
Isle of Wight	459	49,584
Kent	8,728	502,510
Lancashire	7,301	594,252
Leicestershire	6,265	371,638
Lincolnshire	1,739	194,228
Norfolk	3,024	253,887
North Yorkshire	4,419	276,129
Northamptonshire	1,826	215,087
Northumberland	1,409	127,589
Nottinghamshire	2,896	414,002
Oxfordshire	1,285	215,518
Shropshire	1,702	159,908
Somerset	1,912	177,433
Staffordshire	1,114	382,274
Suffolk	2,535	240,229
Surrey	3,575	330,929
Warwickshire	12	183,502
West Sussex	1,856	252,300
Wiltshire	1,820	209,106
Clwyd	1,018	163,025
Dyfed	817	163,632
Gwent	3,393	199,150
Gwynedd	1,189	104,360
Mid-Glamorgan	1,584	257,223
Powys	647	56,220
South Glamorgan	1,236	164,765
West Glamorgan	965	157,389
England and Wales(57)	184,132 (58), (59)	19,901,208(60)

-- = not available.

(54) Including major discretionary awards (paid at least 50% of the mandatory rate) and minor awards (paid at less than 50 per cent. of the mandatory rate).

(55) Including expenditure on fees for discretionary award placement year sandwich students.

(56) Net recurrent expenditure, i.e. total expenditure not including joint arrangements less capital charges, interest and capital expenditure charged to revenue account minus customer and client receipts and revenue for other LEAs for pupils and students educated by the authority.

(57) Camden and Westminster were unable to provide all of the information required on discretionary awards expenditure.

(58) Total is grossed to compensate for incomplete returns.

(59) Source: LEA returns on Form 503G.

(60) Source: LEA RO1 returns to the Department of the Environment.

9 Jan 1996 : Column: 151

Executive Agencies

Dr. Wright: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if answers sent to hon. Members in reply to parliamentary questions by the head of executive agencies in her Department are (a) seen, (b) approved and (c) amended by her before they are sent; and if she will identify such letters to which amendments by her have been made in 1994-95. [7838]

Mr. Forth: The Department has two executive agencies--the Employment Service and the Teachers' Pensions Agency. Parliamentary questions are passed to the head of the relevant executive agency for reply when the matter is one delegated to him or her under the agency framework document. The relevant Minister may see a copy of the reply before it is sent, but would not normally intervene in operational matters.

No such answers were amended by Ministers in 1994-95.

Special Needs

Mr. Spearing: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how the special educational needs code of practice arising from section 157(1) of the Education Act 1993 will be applied to small-scale voluntary daycare centres operating the proposed pre-school provision funded by education vouchers; and by what means she will ensure (a) that children with special educational needs will be considered for statementing and (b) that when statemented, full provision for their needs will be made available as a consequence. [8188]

Mr. Robin Squire: The responsibilities of local authorities to identify and make a statutory assessment of those children who probably need a statement, to make a statement where appropriate and to satisfy themselves that provision is made available in accordance with the statement, remain unchanged.

9 Jan 1996 : Column: 152

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is considering making it a requirement for all voucher redeeming institutions to have regard to the special educational needs code of practice.

All nursery voucher redeeming institutions will be expected to include in published information for parents details of their special educational needs policy.

Pre-school Education

Mr. Spearing: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, pursuant to the answer of 7 December, Official Report, column 403, what are the qualifications and current functions of those appointed to evaluate the first phase of the pre-school education scheme. [8193]

Mr. Robin Squire: Evaluation of the first phase of the nursery education voucher scheme will be led by officials of the Department.

Mr. Spearing: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment by what means she plans to ensure that additional facilities made available with the proposed voucher-based pre-school education scheme will not prejudice the operation of existing nursery schools and classes in the maintained system. [8189]

Mr. Squire: There is no reason why the voucher scheme should affect the operation of existing nursery schools and classes in the maintained sector. The proposed funding mechanism ensures that the maintained sector does not lose funding if recruitment of four-year-olds remains at present levels.

Mr. Spearing: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) for what purposes it is necessary to spend £5 million on the administration of the first phase of the pre-school education scheme taking place in four local authorities, and £20 million on the administration and inspection of the second phase of the pre-school education scheme which will operate in all local authorities in the United Kingdom; [8191]

(2) if she will estimate the proportion of the £5 million cost allocated to the first phase of the new pre-school education scheme which she does not expect to arise in the further extension of the scheme. [8192]

Mr. Squire: For the first and second phases of the nursery education voucher scheme, £5 million and £20 million respectively has been set aside for the new educational inspection programme for voucher redeeming establishments and the administration of the scheme. The vast majority of this funding will be spent on the inspection programme; the greater proportion of funding for the first phase will be spent on the recruitment and training of inspectors to carry out the inspections in the second phase.

Mr. Spearing: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will place in the Library the responses to her Department's consultation paper, "Quality Assurance Regime for Institutions which Redeem Pre-School Education Vouchers: Discussion Paper". [8194]

Mr. Squire: Yes. A summary of the responses will be placed in the Library.

9 Jan 1996 : Column: 153

Mr. Spearing: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment by what means the payment of the proposed pre-school voucher system will be accommodated within the academic and financial year structures of local authorities with special reference to the times that children will start attending primary school full-time. [8190]

Mr. Squire: Local education authorities participating in the first phase of the scheme will receive voucher income in a number of installments over the year in respect of voucher-bearing children in their schools.

---