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Jackie Ballard (Taunton): Is my hon. Friend aware that the chairman of governors at Cheddon Fitzpaine primary school in my constituency resigned this week? It is a very successful school and she has been the chair of governors for 10 years, but she resigned because of the twin pressures of budget difficulties continuing year after year and the extra innovations that the Government have loaded on to schools. The school will find it difficult to find anyone to replace her and many areas have a shortage of people willing to become governors.
Mr. Heath: My hon. Friend is right. I know the lady in question and I know the value of her service to that school. My wife is a governor of a small rural school and my children attend such schools. They face difficulties because people are fed up of wrestling with budgets time after time.
The effect of more pupils in Somerset has already been mentioned, but this year it will cost an extra £1.5 million simply to accommodate the extra pupils on the rolls. Also, every 1 per cent. of the teachers' pay awards that is not budgeted for in the Government's figures costs Somerset another £800,000 to £900,000. The county council is, of course, able to operate expediencies. It can continue to spend in excess of its SSA on education, as it has for the past 10 years. However, it may face capping, whether it is crude and universal or secretive and targeted. Whichever it is, it still exists.
The county council also faces the problems caused by increasing the council tax--an increase that many in rural areas cannot afford. Then there is the effect on other services. I have mentioned social services and I worry greatly that Somerset spends below its SSA on
social services. That is an essential part of the council's work, but it reduces spending on it to meet the needs of the education budget. The council also faces the lack of real improvement in standards in schools, which the Minister would love to see. Of course, the non-school services are also constantly being squeezed.
The Government's actions, including the introduction of a three-year stability programme, should ameliorate the situation. However, if they dip the present formula in aspic and use it for the next three years, they will do counties such as Somerset no favours because all that will do is maintain an unfair position. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon in his recent Adjournment debate, the Minister suggested that the additional funds might provide a valuable mechanism for rectifying some of the faults in the system. However, although Somerset is very pleased about the result of its bid to the standards fund, that extra funding has to be matched. If an authority has not got the spare cash to match that funding, it has to take it out of the already allocated schools budget. The authority is in a cleft stick, because it can only improve one area to the detriment of another.
The money for the reduction of class sizes is also good news and I welcome it. The Government are doing a tremendous job, but if class sizes are reduced at the bottom end of schools by improving the funding of primary schools, any cuts in services must be concentrated on the middle and secondary schools, which also cannot afford any reductions.
I hope that it is common ground between the Minister and myself that the quality of education in Somerset is extremely good. I hope that she also recognises that the local authority has shown its commitment year after year to making education its priority. It displays a high degree of efficiency and effectiveness in its administration and delegates a high proportion of its spending to its schools. The fact remains that the SSA per pupil is well below the national average. Compared to some of the London authorities, it is £1,000 per pupil lower. I cannot accept that for my children or my constituents' children. I cannot accept that they are second-class pupils because they happen to live in Somerset and to benefit from its countryside. The Government must demonstrate their commitment to extending what they are saying and doing in education overall to every part of the country. At present, the formula prevents that.
I am sick and tired of bringing this case to Government each year. I did it as leader of the council, as chairman of education, for the county council and now I do it as a Member of Parliament. It is the same case year after year because it is the same problem year after year. I do not want the chairs of governors, governing bodies, head teachers and parents to go through the same ritual year after year of writing letters and applying pressure to the Department for Education and Employment when the fact is that the formula is wrong and needs changing. I invite the Minister to put what pressure she can on the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to ensure that, next year, Somerset has the funding that it deserves to run its schools as they should be run.
10.40 pm
The Minister for School Standards (Ms Estelle Morris):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on securing this debate. It is a little like deja vu because the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) had a similar debate a week ago. I will try not to be too repetitive but I hope that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome understands that the explanation that I gave his colleague is very much the one that I will give him, but I will tailor it to suit Somerset.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome described this as a south-west problem, but it is not. I hear about the problem that we inherited on how standard spending assessments are worked out wherever I go. In the west midlands, where my constituency lies, people from Staffordshire and Derbyshire speak with the same feeling as people from Somerset. In my travels, I have not yet met anyone who said how generously they are funded by SSA and called for the longed-for review. I suspect that I am in for a spate of Adjournment debates over the next few weeks as hon. Members rightly secure debates on their education settlements. I look forward to the first Member who joins us in claiming that a review of SSAs is long overdue but says that his or her area receives too much. That is the difficulty.
I am delighted to be able to respond to one of the points raised by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome. I congratulate those in Somerset and his constituency on the standards of education. They achieve above the national level: 51 per cent. of Somerset pupils obtain five or more GCSEs at grades A to C. Key stage 2 tests show 67 per cent. of pupils achieving better than the national average. The same is true at each key stage. Such achievement is not brought about without much hard work, I extend my thanks and congratulations. I extend them also to local authorities in Somerset that have made the difficult decision to spend more than their education SSA because, as a constituency Member, I know the consequences for other services. I am happy to oblige the hon. Gentleman on both points.
I disagree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome on one matter. I understand his frustration in all the different guises of his relationship with Somerset, as parent, governor, councillor and Member of Parliament. I understand his frustration with repeating the same argument in different forums year after year but this is our second year of being answerable for that. It was a different Government with different priorities that answered previous queries. I understand his frustration but I am answerable only for our actions over the past 18 months.
I want to put the matter in the context of the increased funding that there has been. I am sorry that a chair of governors decided to resign because we need good quality people in such positions. In thanking that person for their years of service, I wonder whether a review of that decision might be appropriate. Year after year, governing bodies have had to struggle with reduced budgets. It is ironic that, in the first year that we are getting really expanded budgets, high-calibre chairs of governors should choose to resign. I make that point to the constituent of the hon. Member for Taunton (Jackie Ballard). Such people know the national context in which we are operating, with a doubling of capital funding between now and 2002 and an average £10 billion increase over the next three years in money going to local authorities.
That money was already going to come through next year, and the hon. Gentleman was kind enough to acknowledge that. Whereas, nationally, SSAs will increase by 5.7 per cent., the SSA for his area will increase by 6.5 per cent. I realise that the extra is to account for increased numbers, even if they were counted 18 months ago, so I do not pretend that it is an effort to remedy the SSA.
I was also pleased that the hon. Gentleman acknowledged that, where we have the power to bring more money into schools without changing the SSA, we have done so. He cannot claim as much sorrow as his hon. Friend the Member for Northavon, whose authority is bottom of the table. Sadly, that is not a position on which any hon. Members would pride themselves. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome represents an area that is certainly in the bottom half as regards SSA. I think that 29 local authorities have SSAs that make them worse off and have more cause to complain than the hon. Gentleman, but I am not trying to justify that, to make light of the load or to say that he ought to feel better.
This year, we have managed to increase the standards fund to Somerset by about 70 per cent. above our increase in funding last year. The Government's authority receives the national average when it comes to allocation of standards funding. Although I certainly accept the argument that it is receiving less SSA than he and his constituents have a right to expect, I assure him that, where we have been able to act within the formula, we have not treated Somerset less favourably than other local authorities. I hope that his constituents and the chairs of governors, who rightly worry about that, realise and acknowledge that fact. Somerset received £378,000 so that it could begin to implement class size policy early. Of course, that is not matched money--it is 100 per cent. from the standards fund.
There will be other initiatives. The hon. Gentleman is concerned about a school in his constituency that has a class of 38. I am considering a petition, which he presented to the House, and I will be in a position to reply to his constituents shortly. I understand that it is not a key stage 1 class, otherwise it would be dealt with. I hope that he will accept that the 20,000 classroom assistants, who will be funded through the standards fund, will be the sort of resource that will allow the adult-to-pupil ratio in that key stage 2 class to be better by the time of the next election.
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