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EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT
"Excellence in schools"
Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) what estimate he has made of the proportion of the response to his White Paper "Excellence in schools", which related to each of the chapters upon which comment was sought; and in each case, approximately what proportion of comment expressed (a) support for and (b) opposition to the approach outlined or described; [16055]
- (2) how many responses were received to the White Paper "Excellence in schools"; and of these how many (a) were on the tear-off forms in the summary document, (b) were written responses, (c) were in some other form, (d) addressed specifically the questions posed in the White Paper and (e) ranged beyond the questions posed.[16056]
Mr. Byers: We received over 8,000 responses to the White Paper of which some 3,500 were written responses to the full version. The remainder were a combination of tear-off slips and other forms of communication.
Of the 3,500, 138 were from Local Education Authorities and about 600, 2,100 and 700 came from representative organisations, schools and individuals respectively. A breakdown between grant-maintained and LEA-maintained schools is not currently available.
Most responses addressed issues from more than one chapter and many ranged beyond the specific questions posed. There was broad support for the contents of the White Paper.
We continue to consider all the responses in detail.
Mr. Don Foster:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many head teacher and deputy head teacher posts are currently vacant in
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local education authority maintained (a) secondary and (b) primary schools. [16090]
Mr. Byers:
The number of head teacher and deputy head teacher vacancies, at January 1997, in local education authority maintained nursery, primary and secondary schools in England is shown in the following table. Vacancies in grant maintained schools are not included.
| Grade of post vacant(7) | Nursery/primary | Secondary |
|---|---|---|
| Head teacher | 122 | 29 |
| Deputy head | 202 | 31 |
(7) Only those posts which were advertised at 16 January 1997 as full-time permanent posts or posts of at least one term's duration are counted as vacancies.
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Special Needs
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what progress has been made in encouraging local education associations, other local agencies and business to work together to co-ordinate support for children with special educational needs. [15485]
Ms Estelle Morris: On 22 October we published a Green Paper, "Excellence for All Children: Meeting Special Educational Needs", which encourages local education authorities, other local agencies and business to work together to support the education of children with special educational needs. We are consulting on how to improve and develop such co-ordination.