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Volunteering (Civil Service)
Dr. Desmond Turner: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what steps she will take to promote volunteering among civil service employees during the International Year of Volunteering 2001. [126880]
Mr. Stringer: Following on from the Prime Minister's recent initiative to promote voluntary activity in the community, the Cabinet Office has written recently to all Departments and agencies encouraging them to allow and support their staff to undertake voluntary work through the provision of designated paid leave for that purpose. We will continue to promote this initiative throughout the year and into 2001. We are currently in consultation with colleagues in other Departments over what we intend to do specifically during the International Year of Volunteering.
Parliamentary Questions
Mr. Maclennan: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many written parliamentary questions were
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tabled to her Department between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000; and how many of them have not received substantive answers, with disproportionate cost cited as the reason. [127336]
Mr. Stringer: Between 19 October 1999 and 20 April 2000, 238 written questions were tabled to my Department, of which two were replied to by stating that the information was not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. A further 13 questions received partial answers, with disproportionate cost cited as the reason why a complete answer could not be given.
EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT
LEA Funding
Ms Buck: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what the value was of additional support to schools in (a) Westminster city council area and (b) the Royal boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea additional to revenue support grant since 1997 in respect of (a) the School Standards Fund, (b) section 11/ethnic minority achievement grant, (c) Excellence in Cities (d) education action zone and (e) other categories. [125417]
Ms Estelle Morris: The additional support provided for schools is contained in the table:
| Westminster | Kensington and Chelsea | |
|---|---|---|
| Standards Fund (Main)(12) | ||
| 1997-98 | 865,543 | 609,905 |
| 1998-99 | 1,697,559 | 977,941 |
| 1999-2000 | 5,606,292 | 3,190,611 |
| 2000-01 | 7,317,157 | (13)3,585,179 |
| Section 11 (Home Office) | ||
| 1997-98 | 1,363,058 | 739,615 |
| 1998-99 | 1,398,498 | 758,845 |
| Education Action Zones | ||
| 2000-01 | 800 | 0 |
| Special Grants(14) | ||
| 2000-01 | 818,000 | 494,000 |
(12) Includes Excellence in Cities and Ethnic Minority Achievement 1999-2000 to 2000-01.
(13) Offered £4.1 million initially 2000-01.
(14) Including School Budget Support and School Standards Grants
Notes:
1. NDS Capital excluded from figures.
2. Standards Fund grants include the local authority contribution, where required.
School Playing Fields
Mr. Chidgey: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) how many sales of school playing fields he has (a) approved and (b) rejected in each month since October 1998; [125928]
- (2) what the acreage is of the school playing fields whose disposal he has (a) approved and (b) rejected in each month since October 1998; [125929]
(3) what has been the total sale value of school playing fields whose disposal he has (a) approved and (b) rejected in each month since October 1998. [125930]
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Jacqui Smith [holding answer 15 June 2000]: Before October 1998, there was no regulation of the sale of school playing fields whatever. If a local authority wanted to sell a school playing field, there was nothing to stop it and it could spend the proceeds as it wished.
To put a stop to the indiscriminate sale of school playing fields, the Government introduced Section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. Section
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77 requires a local authority, or the governing body of a maintained school, to obtain the Secretary of State's consent before disposing, or changing the use, of any school playing field. Local authorities are aware of the tough criteria against which their applications are considered and only put forward those applications they are confident will meet the criteria. The table shows the requested information.
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| Number of sales | Area (m(16)) | Total sale value (£) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approved | Rejected | Approved | Rejected | Approved | Rejected | |
| 1998 | ||||||
| October | 1 | -- | 16,000 | -- | 2,414,000 | -- |
| November | 2 | -- | 71,665 | -- | 2,250,000 | -- |
| December | 4 | -- | 51,780 | -- | 1,283,000 | -- |
| 1999 | ||||||
| January | 2 | -- | 75,900 | -- | --(15) | -- |
| February | 6 | -- | 139,180 | -- | 12,645,000 | -- |
| March | 6 | -- | 171,100 | -- | 6,670,000 | -- |
| April | 10 | -- | 177,590 | -- | 6,122,000 | -- |
| May | 7 | -- | 93,450 | -- | 13,430,000 | -- |
| June | 2 | 2 | 51,300 | 51,500 | 90,000 | 516,000 |
| July | 2 | -- | 82,500 | -- | 5,160,000 | -- |
| August | 1 | -- | 33,000 | -- | 32,600 | -- |
| September | 1 | -- | 9,000 | -- | 650,000 | -- |
| October | 2 | -- | 36,500 | -- | 1,280,000 | -- |
| November | 2 | -- | 56,800 | -- | 2,180,000 | -- |
| December | 3 | -- | 27,110 | -- | 1,320,000 | -- |
| 2000 | ||||||
| January | 2 | -- | 14,360 | -- | 806,500 | -- |
| February | 1 | -- | 48,300 | -- | 3,100,000 | -- |
| March | 1 | -- | 5,880 | -- | 150,000 | -- |
| April | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| May | 4 | -- | 41,780 | -- | 12,520,000 | -- |
| June | 2 | -- | 28,170 | -- | 1,200,000 | -- |
(15) Not known
Notes:
1. All sale proceeds are used to provide new or improved sports or education facilities at maintained schools.
2. 40 per cent. of applications are in respect of sports pitches at closed or closing schools.
3. In 66 per cent. of cases at operating schools, the sale proceeds have been used to provide new or enhanced sports facilities, including sports halls, all-weather pitches or improved grass sports pitches.
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Standards Fund
Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list (a) the education authorities which did not accept Standards Fund grants available through the provision of matching funding in each of the last two years and (b) the amount of grant involved in each case; and how the undistributed funds were used. [126319]
Ms Estelle Morris: The tables show the sums initially surrendered for the main Standards Fund programme. We cannot separately identify where this was due to difficulty in finding match funding. Most authorities accepted allocations in full in both years. The requirement for authorities to contribute to the 2000-01 Standards Fund of over £1.6 billion supported expenditure was allowed for in the 5.4 per cent. increase in education Standard Spending Assessment for 2000-01. Surrendered sums are re-used in full for supporting education priorities, mainly within the Standards Fund programme.
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| Local education authority | DfEE grant |
|---|---|
| 1999-2000 surrendered allocations | |
| Barnsley | 6,000 |
| Brent | 476,538 |
| Coventry | 101,580 |
| Devon | 47,260 |
| East Riding of Yorkshire | 87,750 |
| Greenwich | 25,000 |
| Hillingdon | 48,450 |
| Manchester | 18,750 |
| Newcastle | 31,792 |
| North Lincolnshire | 18,705 |
| North Somerset | 32,831 |
| Northumberland | 19,689 |
| Richmond on Thames | 20,000 |
| Salford | 16,004 |
| Solihull | 10,000 |
| Southampton | 34,000 |
| South Tyneside | 9,000 |
| Suffolk | 374,665 |
| Trafford | 20,000 |
| Wandsworth | 14,644 |
| Warrington | 5,500 |
| Total | 1,418,156 |
Notes:
1. Adjustments to 2000-01 are continuing. Once complete, they will result in reductions to the total allocations initially surrendered.
2. Reasons given for the surrender by authorities include claim of difficulty with matching funding.
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