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2 Mar 2004 : Column 902W—continued

Pre-School Play Groups

Mr. Cameron: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many women are employed in the management and operation of pre-school play groups; and if he will make a statement. [156276]

Margaret Hodge [holding answer 26 February 2004]: According to the latest available data in the 2001 Childcare Workforce Survey, there were 79,800 paid employees in playgroups and preschools. Of these 14,000 were managers, 18,340 supervisors with 47,460 other workers.

99 per cent. of paid employees were female. We do not know the gender split for managers and supervisors.

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Random Drug Testing

Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what representations he has received supporting the drugs testing of school children; and if he will make a statement. [157356]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: The Department has received a number of representations supporting the drug testing of pupils.

"Drugs: Guidance for Schools" highlights drug testing as one of a range of options available to headteachers to tackle drugs. The guidance spells out the issues schools should consider before employing drug testing, including gaining appropriate consent. The guidance will be sent to all schools on 9 March.

Retention Measures

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what measures are in place to encourage retention of workers in the (a) engineering and (b) manufacturing fields. [156981]

Jacqui Smith: I have been asked to reply.

The Government's Manufacturing Strategy, which we developed in partnership with industry, trade unions and other stakeholders, aims to create a high value manufacturing sector in the UK with a highly skilled and well paid workforce, moving away from competing on the basis of low skill and low wages. We are continuing to develop a range of initiatives under the Skills Strategy such as employer training pilots, modern apprenticeships, the growing network of Sector Skills Councils and other measures to better deploy and retain skills to improve business performance.

Where there are significant redundancies in the manufacturing sector, the Rapid Response Service works to move people quickly into new jobs, preventing them from becoming detached from the labour market. Although a trend to declining manufacturing employment has been a feature of advanced economies over the last 30 years, new jobs are still being created all the time. Around 250,000 manufacturing vacancies were reported to Jobcentre plus in the last year. Overall the UK labour market is performing well, with total employment rising by nearly 1.7 million since Spring 1997, and unemployment falling in every region in Britain over the past year.

School Meals

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many (a) primary and (b) secondary school pupils in England are (i) eligible for and (ii) taking up free school meals, broken down by region. [156068]

Mr. Miliband [holding answer 26 February 2004]: The data requested have been placed in the House of Commons Library.

School Sports Facilities

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what submissions have been made

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by his Department to the Activity Co-ordination Team regarding making school sports facilities accessible to the community during school holidays. [155350]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: The Department for Education and Skills is a full and active member of the Activity Co-ordination Team. The Department is responsible for developing the education strand within the team's action plan. This will seek to maximise the benefits from opening up school sports facilities for community use, including during school holidays. The Activity Co-ordination Team will publish its action plan later this year.

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps his Department is taking to encourage schools to extend access to their sports facilities through the extended schools programme. [155351]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: The Department for Education and Skills published extended schools guidance in October 2002. The guidance covers a range of practical issues, including information and advice on providing community access to sports facilities. A copy has been placed in the House of Commons Library.

The Department has made funding available to support local coordination and management of extended services in schools, and to create up to 240 full service extended schools, with at least one in each LEA area, by 2006. These schools will provide a prescribed core range of extended services and facilities, including sports and arts facilities.

In addition, the national PE, School Sport and Club Links strategy aims to increase the percentage of five to 16-year-olds who spend a minimum of two hours each week on high quality PE and school sport within and beyond the curriculum to 75 per cent. by 2006. The strategy promotes the extended use of school sports facilities, for example the Sport Partnerships programme is delivering increased out of school hours sports opportunities. Schools benefiting from the £686 million investment in the New Opportunities for PE and Sport and the Space for Sport and the Arts capital programmes are required to demonstrate how the new school sports facilities can be shared with other schools and opened up for community use.

James Purnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many schools have specialist sports status; and how they are being monitored to ensure they open their sports facilities to the wider community out-of-hours; [157764]

(2) which specialist schools open their sports facilities to the wider community out-of-hours. [157769]

Mr. Stephen Twigg: There are 228 Specialist Sports Colleges across the country. We also have three Sports Academies with another one opening in September. A further 30 Sports Colleges have been approved already for this year, and we are expecting more applications for Sports College status in the March application round.

All Specialist Schools have a community plan which spells out their commitment to their wider communities. Sports Colleges generally include the provision of out-of-hours and weekend coaching and club sports events, and these are monitored through the regular submission of progress reports to this Department. In addition, the Youth

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Sport Trust commissions in-depth annual reports on Sports Colleges which survey their community activities as well as their curricular and whole-school performance.

James Purnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which universities allow use of their sports facilities by the wider community. [157768]

Mr. Caborn: I have been asked to reply.

All universities allow the use of their sports facilities by the wider community, although the degree to which they do so varies enormously. Sport England have commissioned a piece of research into sports provision in higher education institutions which will cover community usage of university sports facilities. The 'Audit of Sports Provision in the Higher Education Sector' will be launched on 23 March 2004.

Special Educational Needs

Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment the Government has made of the cost of education of children with special education needs (a) with and (b) without statements. [157071]

Mr. Stephen Twigg [holding answer 27 February 2004]: Figures for the costs of education of children with special education needs (SEN) with and without statements are not collected separately. However, it is possible to provide information about the overall expenditure on the education of children with SEN and to show the split of that expenditure between mainstream and special schools.

The total estimated cost of providing special needs education in 2003–04 is £3,464,836,204. Of this, it is estimated that £1,717,253,601 will be spent on pupils in mainstream schools, in addition to their normal place funding. An estimated £1,511,349,567 will be spent on pupils in special schools. This includes pupils in maintained special schools and fees for pupils in independent and non-maintained special schools. In addition, an estimated £236,233,036 will be spent in this financial year on centrally funded SEN activities. These include the costs of educational psychology services, assessment and statementing, parent partnership services and the provision of information.

Specialist Schools (Sponsorship)

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will estimate the average amount of support that a specialist school receives through corporate and charitable sponsors. [156140]

Mr. Charles Clarke: On average a school applying for specialist status will receive £33,500 (67 per cent.) of the required £50,000 sponsorship from corporate and charitable sources (based on figures from the October 2003 application round). This includes an element of corporate and charitable sponsorship raised through the new Partnership Fund, which was introduced in 2002 to support schools in raising sponsorship. Schools raise the rest of the required amount through a combination of fund-raising, charitable donations from parents and other activities.

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