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Higher Education
Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what measures she has introduced since 1997 to aid recruitment and retention of lecturers in higher education. [53628]
Margaret Hodge: The recruitment and retention of staff is the responsibility of higher education institutions. However, our spending plans for the English higher education sector include £50 million in 2001–02, rising to £110 million in 2002–03 and £170 million in 2003–04, to underpin the human resource strategies which institutions have drawn up, and which address recruitment and retention as well as the modernisation of reward systems.
School Budgets
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate she has made of the proportion of a school's budget in the current financial year which is available as discretionary spending for the head teacher. [54273]
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Mr. Timms: In general, it is for the governing body of each school to determine the extent to which authority to spend the public funds available to the school should be delegated to the head teacher. The proportion of a school's budget which is under the head's control will accordingly vary from school to school, and no statistical information on this point is collected by the Department.
Teachers
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment she has made of the reason for the change in the number of retirements due to ill-health by teachers since 1997. [54277]
Mr. Timms: The criteria governing entitlement to ill health retirement benefits were amended in 1997 to require that, despite appropriate treatment, applicants have a medical condition that would render them permanently incapable of undertaking any further teaching. In this context, permanent is defined as lasting at least up to the scheme's normal retirement age of 60. This replaced the previous less stringent criteria that required the presence of a medical condition that would prevent teaching only for the foreseeable future (defined as lasting at least 3–4 years).
The Department also commissioned the Faculty of Occupational Medicine to produce occupational health guidance specifically aimed at the employers of teachers. This guidance was published in December 2000. The reduction in the number of ill health retirements since 1997 is therefore a consequence of a greater awareness among teachers' employers of the benefits of effective occupational health provision, including consideration of alternatives to ill-health retirement such as part-time working or redeployment to less demanding duties, and the more rigorous criteria governing entitlement to ill health retirement benefits.
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her written answer of 29 April, Official Report, column 572W, where such assets are held if the scheme is unfunded. [54275]
Mr. Timms: The valuation of the Teachers' Pension Scheme is conducted on a notional basis. There are no tangible assets, but in carrying out the valuation the Government Actuary calculates what the assets of the scheme would have been if a real fund had been in existence.
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what happens to the money paid by teachers and employers as pension contributions if their pension fund is unfunded. [54274]
Mr. Timms: Contributions to the Teachers' Pension Scheme by teachers and their employers are paid into the Exchequer and used to defray the cost of paying benefits under the scheme.
School Attendance
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many prosecutions have taken
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place for non-attendance at school in each year since 1997; how many have resulted in convictions; and what sentences were passed. [53890]
Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 2 May 2002]: Information on prosecutions brought under Education Act 1996, section 444 "failing to secure regular attendance at school", will be available for the first time in 'Criminal Statistics for England & Wales 2001' which will be published by the Home Office in September of this year. This section of the Act has only come onto the criminal statistics code book for 2001; previously it was grouped within all prosecutions under the Education Act 1996 and it is not possible to separate the different sections of the Act.
School Provision
Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills in what circumstances the obligations under education legislation (a) to provide schooling and (b) for parents to ensure school attendance may be disapplied for children of compulsory school age resident in the United Kingdom. [53943]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: Local Education authorities are obligated to provide suitable education for all children of compulsory school age at school or otherwise than at school under the Education Act 1996 (sections 13, 14 and 19 as amended).
The parent of every child of compulsory school age is obligated to cause him to receive suitable full-time education either by regular attendance at school or otherwise (Education Act 1996 section 7). If a child of compulsory school age who is a registered pupil at a school fails to attend regularly at the school, his parent is guilty of an offence. However the child shall not be taken to have failed to attend regularly under the circumstances outlined in the Education Act 1996 section 444 subsections (3) to (6).
Local Education Authority Funding
Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 23 April 2002, Official Report, columns 163–67W, on LEA funding, what the comparable figures are for each of the last five years. [54357]
Mr. Timms: The information requested in respect of the financial years 1999–2000 and 2000–01 has been placed in the Library. Because of the changes in the structure of the school funding system which took effect in April 1999, it is not possible to provide corresponding figures for previous years.
Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what post-16 budget support grant is payable to each local education authority in England; and in each case what the category is under which the grant is payable. [54327]
Mr. Timms: The table shows the post-16 budget support grant payable to each local education authority in categories 1a, 1b and 2. Because Category 3 grant depends on adjustments to be made to Learning and Skills Council grant during the course of 2002–03, the amount of that grant cannot be given. (The information given on
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categories 1 and 2 supersedes that given to the Second Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation on 30 April).
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