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Aggregates Tax
Mr. Peter Duncan: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what assessment she has made of the cost to Scottish councils of the proposed aggregates tax. [36746]
Mrs. Liddell: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed the introduction of the aggregates levy after a considered assessment of its impact across the UK.
Electoral Publicity
Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much was spent by her Department on electoral publicity associated with the 2001 general
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election and if she will provide a breakdown of the sum spent by her Department on electoral publicity associated with the 2001 general election. [37092]
Mrs. Liddell: The Scotland Office spent in total £219,000 on electoral publicity for the general election in June 2001. This comprised £106,000 for producing and transmitting a television campaign aimed at encouraging people to vote, and £113,000 for creating and placing newspaper advertisements on postal voting arrangements.
Empty Properties
Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what the total area in square feet of all empty properties owned by (a) her Department, (b) her agencies and (c) other public bodies for which she has had responsibility was in each year since May 1997. [37813]
Mrs. Liddell: The Scotland Office was established in its present form on 1 July 1999. The Department has had no empty properties since that date.
EDUCATION AND SKILLS
Capita Contracts
Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list the contracts her Department has with Capita; and what the (a) value and (b) nature of the contracts are. [36573]
Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 26 February 2002]: My Department has a number of contracts with Capita for a range of different services. These are as follows:
Teachers' Pensions—Administration of the Teachers' Pensions Scheme. A contract with an estimated value in excess of £70 million over seven years.
Connexions Card—Development of the Connexions Card. A Public Private Partnership with a contract value in excess of £100 million over seven years.
Individual Learning Accounts—Administration of the ILA scheme. A contract for five years with an estimated value of around £55 million.
Consultancy Framework Contracts—Framework contract to provide general management consultancy support and consultancy support for LEA interventions. The value of these contracts is determined by their level of usage. Estimated expenditure to date has been £436,500.
Education (Stoke)
Mr. Stevenson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of 16-year-olds have opted to continue into (a) further and (b) higher education in the Stoke-on-Trent local education authority in each of the last four years. [37270]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: The percentage of 16-year-olds participating in full-time and part-time education for Stoke-on-Trent LEA in the three years for which data are available is as follows. Prior to 1997–98 Stoke on Trent LEA was part of Staffordshire LEA.
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| Full-time education | Part-time education | |
|---|---|---|
| 1997–98 | 49 | 9 |
| 1998–99 | 52 | 8 |
| 1999–2000 | 58 | 7 |
(2) Includes participation in schools, sixth form colleges and further education colleges
Corresponding data for participation in full-time higher education by the same age cohort two years later are as follows.
| Number | |
|---|---|
| 1999–2000 | 11 |
| 2000–01 | 13 |
| 2001–02 | 16 |
(3) Defined as the number of 18-year-olds from Stoke accepted for entry to full-time and sandwich undergraduate courses via UCAS, as a proportion of the 17-year-old population in Stoke the previous year
In 1999–2000 Stoke-on-Trent became one of the original 15 LEAs to be piloted for the roll-out of Education Maintenance Allowances. National evaluation of EMA shows it to have had a beneficial effect on post-16 participation.Participation rates by LEA for 16 and 17-year-olds are published in an annual statistical bulletin, "Participation in Education and Training by Young People aged 16 and 17 in Each Local Area and Region, England".
Standards Fund
Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much was allocated per pupil through the Standards Fund for each English education authority in 2001–02. [37771]
Mr. Timms: The following table shows allocations for the Standards Fund, shown as an amount per pupil, for 2001–02, for each local education authority in England. The figures include recurrent and capital Standards Fund grants excluding those that are specifically for under-5s education, further education and adult education. The Standards Fund includes Government grant and local authority contributions, which have both been included in the calculations.
The Standards Fund is one element of overall education funding and supports a range of national education priorities, such as the national literacy and numeracy strategies, support for Specialist Schools, measures to raise the level of achievement of pupils from ethnic minorities, the Excellence in Cities initiative and capital projects. As such the Standards Fund is not allocated on a simple per pupil basis, but in relation to the specific priorities it is designed to support. For example, the allocation a local education authority will receive to support its Specialist Schools will depend on the number of those schools in that authority. A local education authority will not necessarily receive an allocation for every Standards Fund priority. For example, not all authorities are part of the Excellence in Cities initiative,
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which is designed to raise performance through a targeted programme addressing the educational problems of our major cities.
Note:
Figures include recurrent and capital grants.
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