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EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

Jobseeker's Allowance

Sir Ralph Howell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what reduction in public expenditure she estimates will ensue from the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance in the first full year of operation. [3286]

Mr. Forth: It is estimated that, in a full year, the introduction of JSA will produce direct benefit savings of £240 million. No estimates have been made of savings which might accrue from behavioural changes as a result of JSA.

Mr. Ian McCartney: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what were the costs incurred by her Department in publicising the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance in each region. [3927]

Mr. Forth: The costs incurred up to 31 October 1996 were £500,205, and related mainly to national publicity for jobseekers and external groups. This figure includes costs incurred by the Department, the Department for Social Security, the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency.

Class Sizes

Dr. Hampson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many classes in (a) primary and (b) secondary education there are with over 30 pupils; what were the figures in 1979; and what has been the percentage change. [3883]

14 Nov 1996 : Column: 339

Mr. Robin Squire: The information requested is shown in the following table:

Number of classes of 31 or more pupils taught by one teacher in maintained primary and secondary schoolsEngland Position in January in each year (1979 and 1996)

	1979	1996	Percentage change
Primary	44,899	38,338	-14.6
Secondary(21)	17,255	7,351	-57.4

(21) Excludes pupils in sixth form colleges which ceased to be classified as schools in April 1993.

Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is her estimate of the cost of reducing to a maximum of 30 maintained infant and primary school classes for pupils aged between five and 11 years. [3881]

Mr. Squire: The Department's statisticians estimate that it would have cost between £310 million and £570 million to reduce to a maximum of 30 pupils all single-teacher nursery and primary classes in January 1996. The exact cost would depend on the extent to which children in larger classes could be accommodated in existing smaller classes or grouped together in new classes. The estimated costs are for extra teachers only, and make no allowance for further costs such as extra accommodation.

Dr. Hampson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what has been the (a) pupil--teacher ratio in each year and (b) the expenditure per pupil in each year since 1980. [3882]

Mr. Squire: The available information is shown in the following table:

Pupil: teacher ratio and expenditure per pupil for maintained nursery, primary and secondary(22) schoolsEngland 1979-1980 to 1995-1996

Financial year	Overall pupil: teacher ratio(23)	Expenditure (24)(25) per pupil (£)
1979-1980	18.7	513
1980-1981	18.6	651
1981-1982	18.5	740
1982-1983	18.1	811
1983-1984	17.9	872
1984-1985	17.8	924
1985-1986	17.6	991
1986-1987	17.3	1,110
1987-1988	17.0	1,238
1988-1989	17.0	1,361
1989-1990	17.0	1,487
1990-1991	17.2	1,623
1991-1992	17.2	1,749
1992-1993	17.7	1,857
1993-1994	18.1	1,866
1994-1995	18.3	1,890
1995-1996	18.5	n/a

(22) Excludes sixth form colleges from 1993-1994.

(23) Position in January.

(24) Net institutional expenditure in cash terms.

(25) Includes LEA maintained schools only.

n/a = not available.

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Truancy

Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment he has made of truancy rates at grant-maintained schools relative to those at other schools. [3888]

Mr. Forth: Rates of unauthorised absence at different categories of schools in the 1994-95 school year are set out in the following table. As in previous years, rates of unauthorised absence were significantly lower at grant-maintained schools. Data for the 1995-96 school year will be published shortly.

Unauthorised absence by type of school in England in the 1994-95 school year

Type of school	Percentage of half days missed	Average number of half days missed per absent pupil
Maintained primary schools(26)
County and voluntary controlled	0.5	11
Voluntary aided and special agreement	0.4	10
Grant-maintained	0.3	8
Average for maintained primary schools	0.5	10
Maintained secondary schools(27)
County and voluntary controlled	1.2	22
Voluntary aided and special agreement	0.8	21
Grant-maintained	0.5	17
Average for maintained secondary schools	1.0	22
Special Schools	2.5	27
CTCs	0.2	8
Independent schools	0.1	8
England average	0.7	15

Notes:

(26) Includes middle deemed primary schools

(27) Includes middle deemed secondary schools

Source:

DfEE National Pupil Absence Tables 1995.

Employment Service

Mr. Blunkett: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will place in the Library a copy of the material prepared by the consultants Ernst and Young for the Employment Service, prior to the recent announcement about reductions in activity at the service headquarters. [3918]

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.

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Letter from Derek Grover to Mr. David Blunkett, dated 14 November 1996:

As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has asked me, in the absence of the Chief Executive, to reply to your question on whether a copy of the Ernst and Young material associated with the Review of the Employment Service Headquarters will be placed in the Library of the House.

You may find it helpful to have some background on the work. The Chief Executive commissioned the consultants Ernst and Young to help the Employment Service (ES) Board think through issues concerning the future role of our Headquarters (Head Office and nine Regional Offices) and to develop an overview of the type of Headquarters the Agency would need. We accomplished this through a series of workshops of ES Board members and senior managers, facilitated by the consultants, who provided advice and fact-finding based on their work in organisations elsewhere. Our aim is to now draw on that work to inform more detailed change projects over the next three years.
The consultants did not submit a formal report to the Board. However, I set out the key strands of our thinking and proposals for further work below.
ES's field operations have previously been subject to rigorous examination of need, effectiveness and cost. The Agency has become smaller as unemployment has fallen and it is now appropriate to apply a similar approach to our HQ functions;
our examination concluded that the ES could be managed better and more cost effectively by eliminating duplication of functions between Head and Regional Offices which lead to reworking and loss of economies of scale; improving our Headquarter business processes; and contracting out some support functions;
this had led us to develop a blueprint for ES Headquarters of a small directing and enabling head office and a regional management tier focusing on the delivery of services to our clients;
to realise this, the Chief Executive has commissioned more detailed work to reduce Headquarters activities in areas not directly related to delivery of services to our clients; rebrigade (possibly to single sites) a number of support functions, and actively explore the scope for contracting out a number of support functions.
I hope this is helpful in giving more information on what we are seeking to achieve.

School Funding

Miss Emma Nicholson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans the Government have to preserve the per capita funding required by schools in sparsely populated areas to deliver an equivalent standard of services to that provided by urban schools. [4055]

Mr. Robin Squire: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will be making a statement on the Government's plans for the distribution of funding between local authorities in 1997-98, shortly after the budget. Local authorities will continue to be responsible for distributing funds between schools in their areas.

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