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Working Week (Bootle)

Mr. Benton: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many residents of Bootle have been affected by a reduction of the working week to 48 hours. [176997]

Mr. Sutcliffe: The Working Time Regulations provide workers with the right to refuse to work more than 48 hours on average, if they do not want to. Numbers for Bootle are not available. However, it has been estimated that around 300,000 workers resident in the north-west stood to benefit from the introduction of the weekly working time limits in 1998.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

School Buses

Mr. Paul Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on maintaining school buses free of charge to children. [175057]

Mr. Charles Clarke: Free transport is always necessary for a pupil of compulsory school age (five to 16) who attends the nearest suitable school if it is beyond statutory walking distances. These are two miles for pupils aged up to eight and three miles for those aged eight and over. This is measured by the shortest route along which a child, accompanied as necessary, may walk with reasonable safety.

Free transport might exceptionally be necessary for a five to 16-year-old who lives within walking distance of school, or who does not attend the nearest suitable school: it is for a local education authority to consider such a case on its merits. In addition, they have discretion to provide assistance in a wide range of other circumstances. It is for each LEA to decide on its discretionary transport policy in line with local priorities and to defend it locally.

The current school transport legislation dates to 1944 and has not kept pace with changes to the education system. There are also growing concerns about congestion on the school run, pollution, obesity and lack of exercise. The draft School Transport Bill would seek to allow a small number of local authorities to address the serious environmental and practical issues caused by increasing car use on the school run, and provide attractive alternatives to the family car on the home to school journey.

The Bill will allow pilot authorities to charge fares for those in receipt of school transport, but only at a level which will not increase car use. There are also a number of safeguards built in. Only LEAs that volunteer to become pilots following local consultation will be able to charge and I will then have to approve schemes. While the draft Bill provides as a minimum for pupils entitled to free school meals (FSM) to receive free transport, we hope LEAs will experiment with different approaches to means testing, e.g. considering number of children in family, those just above FSM income cut-off etc.
 
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A National Voice

Mr. Dawson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what comments the Government has made to the future funding of A National Voice; and what guarantees have been made to the Prince's Trust in respect of their mentoring role. [175712]

Mr. Ivan Lewis [holding answer 26 May 2004]: The Government recognise the particular value of A National Voice as the only organisation campaigning to improve the quality of public care for children and young people that is actually led by care-experienced young people.

That is why DfES has awarded a Safeguarding Children and Supporting Families Grant to the Prince's Trust for its work as "host organisation" to A National Voice. This award can only be spent on a National Voice. Subject to the terms and conditions set out in the grant award letter this offers funding to A National Voice for the current and next two financial years of up to £100,000 per year.

A-Levels (Funding)

Mr. Steinberg: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the average funding per student studying A levels at (a) a sixth form college, (b) a further education college and (c) a sixth form attached to a comprehensive school is in the 2004–05 financial year. [176442]

Alan Johnson: Under the Learning and Skills Council's funding formula the basic cost to the public purse of delivering three A-levels in a sixth form college and a further education college to a student in the 2004/05 academic year will be £3,045. This figure comprises £766 for the delivery of each A-level learning aim, and £747 for each student for the entitlement element of their learning programme. Under the LSC's funding formula the basic cost to the public purse of delivering three A-levels to a student at an English maintained secondary school will be £3,212. This figure comprises £785 for the delivery of each A-level learning aim, £750 for each student for the entitlement element of their learning programme, and £107 for each student to meet additional employers' contributions to teachers' pensions. These figures do not represent all funding that colleges and schools receive and are not directly comparable. For example the further education funding rates include consolidated funds for pay and staff training that are not reflected in the school sixth form rates. Also, in each case additional funding may also be available to take account of the higher costs of delivering learning in particular geographical areas, in higher cost subjects, or to students with particular disadvantages or individual needs.

Bureaucracy

Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many tasks introduced by the Government since 1997 have been removed as a result of the reduction in bureaucracy initiatives over the past 12 months. [175917]

Mr. Charles Clarke [holding answer 25 May 2004]: The "Making a Difference—Red Tape and Bureaucracy in Schools Second Report" published in March 2003
 
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identified 125 separate actions to reduce or remove elements of bureaucracy identified through visits to schools and discussions with head teachers. By May this year, 79 of these actions had been completed.

Beyond these specific actions, the independent Implementation Review Unit (IRU) panel of serving heads, teachers and a bursar, has worked with policy officials throughout the development of the 'New Relationship with Schools'; a programme which I announced in January to work with schools in a different way, based on a high degree of professional trust. Schools' interactions with government, in terms of planning, data requests, communications and accessing funding and support will become simpler and more streamlined. Work is also in hand for using a single school plan to replace separate bidding requirements.

In addition, the 'National Agreement on Raising Standards and Tackling Workload' is freeing teachers from unnecessary burdens and ensuring that their time is focused on teaching and learning. Since last September, teachers can no longer routinely be required to carry out administrative and clerical tasks, including 21 specific tasks listed in the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions document. There are more changes to come; from September 2004 there will be a 38 hour annual limit on cover for absent colleagues, and from September 2005 all teachers will be entitled to guaranteed time within the school day for planning, preparation and assessment.

Within the further education and training sector, we are working with the Learning and Skills Council to reduce bureaucracy by simplifying administration for all providers, and we are committed to implementing the 30 recommendations made in the Bureaucracy Task Force's first report. Progress has been made including the reduction of funding streams to the LSC from 45 to 5 in 2003/04. The LSC is implementing plan led funding from 2004/05, and we have established the Bureaucracy Review Group. This is an independent group chaired by Sir Andrew Foster and comprising members from the major provider groups in the sector, to assess new and existing policies and their implementation, challenging the Department, the LSC and other bodies as necessary to remove bureaucratic burdens.

In higher education, the independent Better Regulation Review Group, chaired by David Vandelinde, reports that significant progress has been made in implementing the five recommendations contained in the Better Regulation Task Force's report 'Higher Education: Easing the burden'.

Capital Funding (Brighton and Hove)

Mr. Lepper: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much capital funding was allocated to schools in Brighton and Hove in each year since 1996–97. [176577]

Mr. Miliband: The following table sets out the capital support given by the Government to Brighton and Hove local education authority (LEA) since 1997–98 including devolved formula capital grants to each school. We do not have separate information for 1996–97 when Brighton and Hove was part of East Sussex LEA.
 
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£000

	Capital allocations
1997–98	3,926
1998–99	3,698
1999–2000	5,636
2000–01	7,661
2001–02	(13)28,614
2002–03	5,487
2003–04	7,573
2004–05	(14)12,584
2005–06	(14)2,933

⁽¹³⁾ Includes £24.5 million of PFI credits
⁽¹⁴⁾ Allocations not yet complete.

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