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Teachers (Early Retirement)

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list for each local education authority (a) if it has an early retirement scheme for teachers and (b) if such a scheme has been terminated, the last year of its operation. [123111]

Mr. Wicks: The framework within which local education authorities can offer early retirement to teachers is contained in the Teachers (Compensation for Redundancy and Premature Retirement) Regulations 1997 (as amended). It is a matter for each local education authority to determine how best to make use of these arrangements in the light of local circumstances. No information is held centrally on the early retirement policies of individual local education authorities, but our records show that in 1998-99 all local education authorities, with the exception of the City of London and the Isles of Scilly, granted some early retirements.

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list for each local education authority the (a) minimum age at which a teacher can be offered an early retirement package and (b) maximum enhancement that can be offered to individual teachers. [123112]

22 May 2000 : Column: 339W

Mr. Wicks: The provisions governing the early retirement arrangements for teachers are contained in the Teachers (Compensation for Redundancy and Premature Retirement) Regulations 1997 (as amended). The earliest age at which a teacher can be offered early retirement is 50; and the maximum enhancement payable is 10 years. These provisions apply to all local education authorities.

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many male teachers are still working at age 65 and female teachers at age 60 years in each local education authority as a percentage of the teachers employed by the local education authority. [123114]

Ms Estelle Morris: The number and percentage of teachers in the maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special sector in England at March 1998 (provisional) are contained in the following table:

	Men		Women
	Teachers aged 65 and over	Percentage aged 65 and over	Teachers aged 60 and over	Percentage aged 60 and over
City of London	0	0	0	0
Camden	0	0	20	2.2
Greenwich	0	0	16	1.3
Hackney(7)	1	0.3	14	1.8
Hammersmith and Fulham	2	0.8	8	1.4
Islington	0	0	7	0.8
Kensington and Chelsea	0	0	8	2.5
Lambeth	0	0	24	2.5
Lewisham(7)	0	0	7	0.6
Southwark	1	0.3	14	1.5
Tower Hamlets	0	0	14	1.5
Wandsworth	1	0.2	20	1.9
Westminster	1	0.3	11	1.5
Barking and Dagenham	0	0	7	0.8
Barnet	2	0.3	28	1.7
Bexley	2	0.4	9	0.8
Brent	0	0	23	1.9
Bromley	0	0	21	1.5
Croydon	2	0.3	32	1.9
Ealing	1	0.2	13	0.9
Enfield	0	0	14	0.8
Haringey	2	0.4	18	1.5
Harrow	0	0	14	1.5
Havering	0	0	21	1.8
Hillingdon	0	0	9	0.7
Hounslow	0	0	16	1.2
Kingston upon Thames	0	0	9	1.4
Merton	0	0	7	0.9
Newham	0	0	9	0.7
Redbridge	0	0	16	1.2
Richmond upon Thames	0	0	1	0.2
Sutton	0	0	7	0.8
Waltham Forest	0	0	20	1.6
Birmingham	1	(8)--	50	0.8
Coventry	1	0.1	23	1.3
Dudley	0	0	11	0.6
Sandwell	0	0	9	0.6
Solihull	1	0.2	2	0.2
Walsall	0	0	10	0.7
Wolverhampton	0	0	8	0.6
Knowsley	0	0	6	0.6
Liverpool	0	0	36	1.3
St. Helens	1	0.2	9	0.9
Sefton	1	0.1	15	0.9
Wirral	0	0	8	0.4
Bolton	0	0	9	0.6
Bury	2	0.5	6	0.7
Manchester	2	0.2	37	1.5
Oldham	1	0.1	10	0.7
Rochdale	0	0	7	0.6
Salford	0	0	7	0.5
Stockport	0	0	10	0.7
Tameside	0	0	12	1.0
Trafford	0	0	19	1.5
Wigan	1	0.1	7	0.4
Barnsley	0	0	4	0.4
Doncaster	0	0	8	0.5
Rotherham	1	0.1	9	0.6
Sheffield	0	0	14	0.6
Bradford	0	0	19	0.7
Calderdale	0	0	7	0.7
Kirklees	0	0	12	0.6
Leeds	0	0	25	0.7
Wakefield	1	0.1	5	0.3
Gateshead	0	0	4	0.4
Newcastle upon Tyne	0	0	11	0.8
North Tyneside	0	0	5	0.5
South Tyneside	1	0.2	10	1.2
Sunderland	0	0	15	0.9
Isles of Scilly	0	0	0	0
Bath and North East Somerset	0	0	5	0.6
City of Bristol	0	0	8	0.5
North Somerset	1	0.2	7	0.8
South Gloucestershire	0	0	5	0.4
Hartlepool	0	0	1	0.2
Middlesbrough	0	0	10	1.1
Redcar and Cleveland	1	0.3	2	0.2
Stockton on Tees	0	0	7	0.6
City of Kingston-upon-Hull	0	0	7	0.6
East Riding of Yorkshire	1	0.1	7	0.5
North East Lincolnshire	0	0	3	0.4
North Lincolnshire	0	0	4	0.5
North Yorkshire	0	0	19	0.8
York	0	0	5	0.7
Bedfordshire	1	0.1	24	1.1
Luton	1	0.2	11	1.1
Buckinghamshire	0	0	27	1.1
Milton Keynes	0	0	7	0.6
Derbyshire	0	0	15	0.5
City of Derby	0	0	10	0.8
Dorset	0	0	7	0.4
Poole	0	0	2	0.3
Bournemouth	0	0	8	1.3
Durham	0	0	22	0.8
Darlington	0	0	4	0.8
East Sussex	0	0	18	0.9
Brighton and Hove	0	0	11	1.3
Hampshire	0	0	39	0.7
Portsmouth	0	0	7	0.8
Southampton	0	0	10	1.0
Leicestershire	0	0	22	0.8
Leicester City	0	0	8	0.5
Rutland	0	0	1	0.7
Staffordshire	0	0	31	0.8
Stoke-on-Trent	0	0	7	0.6
Wiltshire	0	0	17	0.9
Swindon	0	0	6	0.7
Berkshire	0	0	52	1.3
Cambridgeshire	1	0.1	11	0.3
Cheshire	0	0	32	0.6
Cornwall	0	0	23	1.1
Cumbria	1	0.1	7	0.3
Devon	0	0	29	0.6
Essex	2	0.1	82	1.0
Gloucestershire	1	0.1	16	0.6
Hereford and Worcester	0	0	13	0.4
Hertfordshire	3	0.1	52	0.9
Isle of Wight	0	0	7	1.2
Kent	1	(8)--	94	1.2
Lancashire	0	0	37	0.5
Lincolnshire	1	0.1	22	0.7
Norfolk	1	0.1	36	1.0
Northamptonshire	0	0	10	0.3
Northumberland	0	0	6	0.4
Nottinghamshire(7)	1	(8)--	24	0.5
Oxfordshire	0	0	21	0.8
Shropshire	0	0	13	0.6
Somerset	0	0	15	0.7
Suffolk	0	0	22	0.7
Surrey	2	0.1	57	1.1
Warwickshire	1	0.1	9	0.4
West Sussex	1	0.1	33	1.0
England	50	(8)--	2,043	0.8

(7) 1997 figures are shown for Hackney, Lewisham and Nottinghamshire due to incomplete annual returns in 1998.

(8) means percentage is less than 0.05 per cent.

22 May 2000 : Column: 341W

Further Education Funding Council

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the staffing complement of the Further Education Funding Council, broken down into (a) those operating at or from headquarters, (b) regional staff and (c) overall full-time equivalents. [122736]

Mr. Wicks: The staffing complement of the Further Education Funding Council is:

(a) Coventry Head Office: 294.03 FTE;
(b) Regions: 252.06 FTE (including 54 home based inspectors);
(c) Overall full-time equivalents: 546.63 FTE.

Training and Enterprise Councils

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the (a) total staff and (b) full-time equivalent staff of the Training and Enterprise councils. [122737]

Mr. Wicks: We do not collect information on TEC staff numbers centrally. However, their statutory accounts as of March 1999 showed that they employed 10,249 staff in total. Where TECs have subsidiaries, the figure is extracted from consolidated accounts and therefore will include staff engaged in Business Link and other activities.

22 May 2000 : Column: 342W

Asylum Seekers

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will publish (a) guidance to local education authorities on the education of the children of asylum seekers and (b) details of the distribution of moneys to local education authorities earmarked by his Department for this purpose. [122738]

Jacqui Smith: Local education authorities have a legal duty to ensure that education is available for all children of compulsory school age in their area appropriate to age, abilities and aptitudes and any special education needs they may have. This duty applies irrespective of a child's immigration status or rights of residence in a particular area, and so it includes children of asylum seekers. This Department has provided funding to the Refugee Council to support a range of publications on the education of asylum seeker children. We are also in discussion with the Refugee Council and the Local Government Association about whether or not further guidance on the education of asylum seeker children would be helpful to local education authorities.

Local education authorities receive funding for the children of asylum seekers in the same way as for other children on their school roll through the Standard Spending Assessment. The Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Grant, which is worth £162.5 million in 2000-01, provides resources to help with the acquisition of language skills among asylum seeker children. In addition, we recently provided a grant of £175,000 to the Local Government Association which was used to provide additional help to some local education authorities towards the increased education costs of asylum seeker children.

On 7 April, the Secretary of State announced that additional funding of £1.5 million will be available in this financial year to support the educational costs of asylum seekers dispersed to cluster areas under the Immigration and Asylum Act. We are currently considering how best to use this additional resource and plan to make an announcement shortly.

The overall amount spent specifically on the education of asylum seeker children is not held centrally, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

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