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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:

£

WestminsterKensington and Chelsea
Standards Fund (Main)(12)
1997-98865,543609,905
1998-991,697,559977,941
1999-20005,606,2923,190,611
2000-017,317,157(13)3,585,179
Section 11 (Home Office)
1997-981,363,058739,615
1998-991,398,498758,845
Education Action Zones
2000-01 8000
Special Grants(14)
2000-01818,000494,000

(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]

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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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Sale of school sports pitches approved under Section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 since 1 October 1998

Number of sales Area (m(16)) Total sale value (£)
ApprovedRejectedApprovedRejectedApprovedRejected
1998
October1--16,000--2,414,000--
November2--71,665--2,250,000--
December4--51,780--1,283,000--
1999
January2--75,900----(15)--
February6--139,180--12,645,000--
March6--171,100--6,670,000--
April10--177,590--6,122,000--
May7--93,450--13,430,000--
June2251,30051,50090,000516,000
July2--82,500--5,160,000--
August1--33,000--32,600--
September1--9,000--650,000--
October2--36,500--1,280,000--
November2--56,800--2,180,000--
December3--27,110--1,320,000--
2000
January2--14,360--806,500--
February1--48,300--3,100,000--
March1--5,880--150,000--
April------------
May4--41,780--12,520,000--
June2--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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Standards Fund
£

Local education authorityInitial DfEE grant
2000-01 surrendered allocations
302 Barnet1,972,471
370 Barnsley183,866
820 Bedfordshire365,107
867 Bracknell Forest50,000
304 Brent1,084,292
846 Brighton and Hove114,685
305 Bromley56,666
351 Bury200,256
875 Cheshire1,379,056
801 City of Bristol473,857
909 Cumbria469,808
841 Darlington36,739
878 Devon1,284,058
835 Dorset79,418
332 Dudley66,178
840 Durham167,038
811 East Riding of Yorkshire73,411
308 Enfield200,610
916 Gloucestershire163,112
850 Hampshire303,731
207 Kensington and Chelsea319,145
810 Kingston-upon-Hull24,500
314 Kingston upon Thames169,515
856 Leicester424,956
855 Leicestershire325,750
821 Luton37,571
315 Merton40,055
806 Middlesbrough150,216
391 Newcastle upon Tyne700,740
926 Norfolk120,006
802 North Somerset43,118
928 Northamptonshire755,049
929 Northumberland1,407,923
892 Nottingham City78,910
891 Nottinghamshire637,089
353 Oldham100,000
874 Peterborough270,035
879 Plymouth127,434
870 Reading85,832
807 Redcar and Cleveland41,956
354 Rochdale274,135
857 Rutland201,567
333 Sandwell1,252,750
343 Sefton15,319
893 Shropshire424,384
393 South Tyneside36,740
342 St. Helens303,158
356 Stockport52,500
935 Suffolk390,455
936 Surrey245,527
880 Torbay59,090
358 Trafford128,804
937 Warwickshire50,000
869 West Berkshire250,000
359 Wigan214,004
865 Wiltshire145,555
872 Wokingham95,000
816 York6,790
Total18,729,923

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Standards Fund
£

Local education authorityDfEE grant
1999-2000 surrendered allocations
Barnsley6,000
Brent476,538
Coventry101,580
Devon47,260
East Riding of Yorkshire87,750
Greenwich25,000
Hillingdon48,450
Manchester18,750
Newcastle31,792
North Lincolnshire18,705
North Somerset32,831
Northumberland19,689
Richmond on Thames20,000
Salford16,004
Solihull10,000
Southampton34,000
South Tyneside9,000
Suffolk374,665
Trafford20,000
Wandsworth14,644
Warrington5,500
Total1,418,156

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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