---

Infant School Pupils

Mr. Blunkett: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list the number and percentage of pupils aged five, six and seven years in maintained infant school classes of 31 or more in each year since 1990 with figures which are available for 1996 showing the percentage change between 1995 and 1996 (a) by each local education authority in England, (b) by region and (c) in total. [40149]

Mr. Robin Squire: Information on the sizes of classes as taught by key stage was first collected centrally in January 1996. Provisional information for key stage 1 is shown in the following table:

Numbers and percentages of pupils at key stage 1 in one teacher classes of size 31 or more in maintained primary schools in each local education authority area and region in England: January 1996 (provisional)

	Pupils	Percentage
Corporation of London	0	0.0
Camden	127	4.0
Greenwich	470	7.5
Hackney	413	8.0
Hammersmith and Fulham	313	11.0
Islington	443	8.1
Kennington and Chelsea	62	3.5
Lambeth	381	6.7
Lewisham	567	8.6
Southwark	707	9.3
Tower Hamlets	349	6.8
Wandsworth	1,118	18.9
Westminster	224	9.1
Barking	734	12.0
Barnet	730	8.5
Bexley	3,984	45.3
Brent	786	11.0
Bromley	5,121	49.0
Croydon	3,497	31.3
Ealing	2,499	26.3
Enfield	3,621	39.2
Haringey	566	8.2
Harrow	1,929	32.4
Havering	2,439	29.2
Hillingdon	1,378	19.6
Hounslow	2,354	35.8
Kingston upon Thames	3,430	82.4
Merton	1,958	44.7
Newham	734	7.7
Redbridge	3,307	48.5
Richmond upon Thames	1,414	31.3
Sutton	1.077	23.5
Waltham Forest	1,020	13.6
Birmingham	10,500	25.7
Coventry	3,510	30.9
Dudley	2,928	29.9
Sandwell	4,303	37.8
Solihull	3,917	49.7
Walsall	2,392	26.0
Wolverhampton	3,176	35.5
Knowsley	1,594	22.7
Liverpool	4,465	23.9
St. Helens	2,179	34.5
Sefton	4,540	43.6
Wirral	2,342	19.4
Bolton	4,861	51.6
Bury	2,926	45.6
Manchester	3,033	19.8
Oldham	3,488	40.5
Rochdale	3,084	39.5
Salford	2,946	32.8
Stockport	3,197	29.7
Tameside	4,316	48.3
Trafford	3,151	41.8
Wigan	4,400	40.7
Barnsley	2,278	30.0
Doncaster	3,584	31.9
Rotheham	1,438	16.8
Sheffield	3,116	19.8
Bradford	5,397	31.6
Calderdale	2,461	35.3
Kirklees	4,374	35.2
Leeds	8,677	35.0
Wakefield	2,680	26.1
Gateshead	699	10.3
Newcastle upon Tyne	2,590	30.0
North Tyneside	2,248	33.9
South Tyneside	1,314	22.7
Sunderland	1,246	11.2
Isles of Scilly	0	0.0
Avon	10,067	31.6
Bedfordshire	5,785	31.9
Berkshire	4,908	22.4
Buckinghamshire	7,269	35.8
Cambridgeshire	5,299	22.2
Cheshire	10,142	28.5
Cleveland	2,979	13.4
Cornwall	4,399	27.6
Cumbria	4,476	28.8
Derbyshire	12,144	41.1
Devon	7,589	24.2
Dorset	8,266	43.5
Durham	5,910	28.3
East Sussex	8,927	43.0
Essex	9,946	19.3
Gloucestershire	5,083	27.2
Hampshire	17,282	30.8
Hereford and Worcester	4,435	21.1
Hertfordshire	8,404	26.0
Humberside	8,874	28.7
Isle of Wight	904	23.8
Kent	14,765	26.7
Lancashire	20,425	40.4
Leicestershire	6,071	20.2
Lincolnshire	4,092	20.2
Norfolk	4,096	19.1
North Yorkshire	4,613	20.1
Northamptonshire	4,780	21.0
Northumberland	4,013	40.9
Nottinghamshire	6,397	21.0
Oxfordshire	2,333	14.4
Shropshire	3,638	27.6
Somserset	4,239	26.5
Staffordshire	12,408	33.2
Suffolk	3,009	15.6
Surrey	6,848	22.6
Warwickshire	7,062	42.9
West Sussex	3,963	19.2
Wiltshire	4,037	20.3
By region
North	25,475	23.7
North-west	81,089	34.5
East Anglia	12,404	19.2
Yorkshire and Humberside	47,492	28.2
West Midlands	58,269	31.1
East Midlands	33,484	25.1
Greater London	47,752	23.3
Other South-east	91,334	26.3
South-west	43,680	28.6
England	440,979	27.5

(30) Number of key stage 1 pupils being taught in single teacher classes of 31 or more expressed as a percentage of all key stage 1 pupils in single teacher classes.

14 Oct 1996 : Column: 723

Physical Education

Ms Coffey: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment she has made of the effect of the measures contained in the Nursery Education and Grant Maintained Schools Act 1996 on the provision of PE facilities. [37940]

Mrs. Gillan: The Nursery Education and Grant Maintained Schools Act 1996 has no effect on the premises requirements for maintained schools or for other institutions offering nursery education. The Act allows grant-maintained schools to borrow commercially, which will allow such schools to invest more in their facilities for physical education.

14 Oct 1996 : Column: 724

The Education (School Premises) Regulation 1996 recently revised many of the premises requirements for maintained schools. The requirements for PE facilities were, however, unaffected.

Sheltered Workshops

Mr. David Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will list the number of blind and disabled people and the number of able-bodied people employed in each sheltered workshop in Scotland indicating the cost of each category in each workshop; and if she will make a statement. [40034]

Mr. Forth: Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service agency under its chief executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Mike Fogden to Mr. David Marshall, dated 14 October 1996:

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about the number of people employed in Supported Workshops in Scotland. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency.
Information on the number of people in Scottish workshops supported by the Employment Service (ES) under its Supported Employment Programme is provided at Annex 1. The Programme is provided under contracts between the workshop owners (who are local authorities or voluntary bodies) and the ES and covers placements with employers as well as workshop places.
Information on the costs of workshop employees in the requested categories (blind people, other disabilities and non-disabled people) is not available. It is not required for management purposes by the ES; no figures are therefore obtained or kept.
Information on the per capita costs of disabled employees supported by the ES is gathered by the ES from voluntary body and local authority contractors as it is a requirement for funding. Contractors provide this information to the ES on a confidential basis as it is commercially sensitive and so individual workshop figures are not publicly available from the ES. However the average cost per disabled employee in Scottish workshops, in 1994/95, the latest year for which figures are available, was £10,695. In that year costs ranged from a loss of £18,783 per worker in one workshop to a loss of £4,421 per worker in another.
I hope this is helpful.

14 Oct 1996 : Column: 723

ANNEX 1

14 Oct 1996 : Column: 723

Name of workshop	Location	Number disabled workers supported by ES(31) including blind	Number blind workers(32) supported by ES(31)	Number non disabled workers not supported by ES(31)	Number other disabled workers not supported by ES(31)
Beltane	Wishaw	19	1	4	0
Blindcraft	Edinburgh	73	45	41	0
Dovetail Enterprises	Dundee	70	28	48	0
Matrix, Fife	Dalgety Bay	47	8	6	0
Blindcraft	Glasgow	118	82	72	7
The Sign Factory	Falkirk	38	6	5	0
Camphill	Newton Dec	82	0	30	0
Erskine Hospital Workshops	Bishopton	32	1	27	3
Hansel Village	Symington	30	0	11	0
Haven Products(33)	Glasgow	90	3	81	6
Lady Haig	Edinburgh	27	3	10	0
Lord Roberts	Edinburgh	8	0	5	0
New Trinity Industries	Edinburgh	53	1	20	0
Blindcraft	Inverness	21	2	7	0
Glencraft Group (Blindcraft Aberdeen)	Aberdeen	71	25	36	0
Scottish Braille Press	Edinburgh	26	7	7	1
Totals		805	212	410	17




(31) Employment Service.

(32) Includes partially sighted workers.

(33) Haven Products operates from four separate sites but has been counted as one workshop unit in the table above.




14 Oct 1996 : Column: 725

Schools (Staff Misconduct)

Miss Lestor: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) on how many occasions and on what dates since 1982 the proprietor of Bedales junior school has notified her Department of cases of dismissal of or resignation by members of staff on the grounds of misconduct as required under the Education (Particulars of Independent Schools) Regulations of 1982, 1991 and 1994; [40414]

(2) how many proprietors of independent schools have reported cases of dismissal of or resignations by members of staff on the grounds of misconduct as required under the Education (Particulars of Independent Schools) Regulations of 1982, 1991 and 1994; and if she will list the schools and the dates of each report. [40415]

Mrs. Gillan: The Department's record are not kept in a form which would provide this information.

---