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Criminal Records Bureau

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make it his policy to recompense schools for the additional costs of searches through the Criminal Records Bureau. [118753]

Mr. Miliband: The cost of Criminal Records Bureau Disclosures falls to individuals. Schools which choose to pay for Disclosures on behalf of staff are expected to meet the cost from within their existing budgets. My Department is contributing £7.4 million towards the Bureau's costs in 2003–04.

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what total costs schools have incurred since September 2002 as a result of the Criminal Records Bureau checks. [119431]

Mr. Miliband: The cost of CRB checks falls to individuals: schools which decide to pay their fee are expected to meet this cost from within their existing budgets. I am not able to provide information on the

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costs involved as my Department does not hold information on the number of checks which have been carried out on school-based staff.

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate he has made of the cost to (a) schools and (b) his Department of funding Criminal Records Bureau checks in (i) 2002 and (ii) 2003. [118134]

Mr. Miliband: My Department is not able to estimate the cost to schools of funding CRB checks as we do not hold information on the number of CRB checks which schools have applied for. The cost of applications falls to individuals: schools which decide to pay their fee are expected to meet this cost from within their existing budgets. My Department contributed £4.2 million towards the CRB's costs in 2002–03 and will contribute a further £7.4 million in 2003–04.

Departmental Website

Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what actions he has taken or is taking to

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ensure that the websites of his Department, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies are accessible to partially sighted and blind people; and if he will make a statement. [117353]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: The Department for Education and Skills website has been designed in accordance with UK government accessibility guidelines for web design, incorporating guidance from the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), the accessibility initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the standards and development body for the web. The site design has also been validated using "Bobby"; an industry standard web-based accessibility tool that analyses web pages for their accessibility to people with disabilities.

The Department has also ensured that non-departmental public bodies are aware of UK government web standards and has issued supplementary guidance for these bodies.

Beacon Schools

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the beacon schools which have not been accepted as leading edge schools. [118700]

Mr. Miliband: We will shortly be making an announcement of the schools that have been successful in this round of the Leading Edge Programme. At that stage we will provide a list of schools—including Beacon Schools—that applied but were unsuccessful.

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the structural distinction between the Leading Practice programme and the Beacon school initiative. [117173]

Mr. Miliband: The Leading Edge Programme is specific to secondary schools and builds on the success of the Beacon Schools initiative to encourage an accelerated pace of change and improvement. The LEA puts significantly more emphasis on active local collaboration to spread excellence.

In primary, the 'Leading Practice' programme, described in the recent primary strategy document 'Excellence and Enjoyment', will also build on successful practice developed through the beacon programme. We intend to develop a 'Leading Practice' programme with common national criteria and branding. It will be focussed on identifying outstanding work in particular areas, within schools that are performing well across the board. The LEA will have a role in working with 'leading practice' schools to ensure they contribute to local networking arrangements so that excellent practice is spread widely.

Education Funding

Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much was made available to East Sussex local education authority under the Standards Fund in each year since 1997. [117634]

Mr. Miliband: The following table shows the Standards Fund grant for East Sussex since 1997.

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The figures include Government grant only, they do not include local authority contributions to the Standards Fund.

Standards Fund grant allocated to East Sussex£ million

Year	Recurrent Grant	Capital Grant	Total Standards	Education Standards Spending Assessment
1997–98	1.7	0.1	1.8	151.3
1998–99	2.2	1.4	3.6	164.7
1999–2000	6.8	1.1	6.9	174.3
2000–01	9.6	4.2	13.8	185.3
2001–02	11.3	6.8	18.1	196.0
2002–03	12.3	10.9	23.2	199.0
2003–04	9.6	10.6	20.2	(14)224.0

⁽¹⁴⁾ Education Formula Funding Share (EFSS). This includes the transfer of Class Size grant and Nursery Education Grant. The equivalent figure on the same basis for 2002–03 would be £210.4 million.

The recurrent grant figure for 2002–03 includes class size grant of £0.95 million. The funding for class size grant is distributed via the Education Formula Spending Shares (EFSS) in 2003–04. On a like for like basis East Sussex has received an increase in EFSS per pupil of 3.2 per cent. on a like for like basis.

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when education maintenance allowance will be available to Gloucestershire. [117674]

Alan Johnson: The national Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme will be available from September 2004 across the whole of England to those students who complete their compulsory education in the 2003–04 academic year.

Ethnic/Cultural Diversity

Nick Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what recent steps his Department has taken to educate (a) primary and (b) secondary school students in (i) ethnicity and (ii) cultural diversity in Britain. [119141]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: Understanding the origins and implications of the diverse ethnic, cultural, national, regional and religious identities in the United Kingdom is an important part of Citizenship education. Citizenship education is part of the Personal, Social and Health Education framework for primary schools and became part of the statutory National Curriculum for 11–16 year olds in September 2002. Pupils are taught from an early age to respect the differences between people, to appreciate other's feelings and points of view, to recognise the effects of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination of any kind and to develop the skills to challenge them assertively. Guidance from QCA on how to deliver these aspects of the National curriculum was sent to all schools in 2002.

Examination Markers

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what recent discussions he has had with organisations responsible for employing A level markers; what assessment he has made of whether they

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are employing sufficient numbers, and of the quality needed, to carry out the job; and if he will make a statement. [118653]

Mr. Miliband: Ministers and officials stay in touch with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) on examination matters. We have made available an additional £6 million this year which is funding a number of initiatives from awarding bodies to help ensure that sufficient markers are recruited.

The Chief Executive of QCA has reported, publicly, that the exam boards are in a better position than last year on marker recruitment.

Further Education

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many targets and milestones are prescribed as part of the Government's FE strategy, Success for All. [117673]

Alan Johnson: Success for All contributes to several of the Department's PSA targets and is being delivered through a three-year development plan agreed by the Learning and Skills Council with each provider. These plans specify four improvement targets with milestones for each year. The targets are for learner numbers, learner success rates, employer engagement, and the proportion of teachers, lecturers and trainers with professional qualifications. The target for learner numbers will be split for adults and young people and the target for learner success rates split into long and short qualifications.

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