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London Admissions System

Glenda Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will set out details of the London admissions system referred to in page 52 of his five year strategy for children and learners. [184703]

Mr. Miliband: The London Schools Admissions System (LSAS) has been developed by the Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in London to create an infrastructure which will simplify the secondary school admissions process for London parents. From September 2005, all 33 London boroughs and eight adjoining LEAs will co-operate to process applications for secondary schools. Parents will be able to apply for up to six maintained secondary schools on a single application form. Individual admission authorities will continue to consider applications under their published arrangements, but where an applicant is eligible for a place at more than one school the LSAS will offer the applicant the available school ranked highest on their application form. This will ensure that no child gets more than one offer and that more children are offered a school place on the national offer date of 1 March. We are confident that because fewer children will be left with no offer of a school place, the LSAS will help to reduce the anxiety and frustration which many parents, pupils and schools feel under the current application system.

Means-tested Benefits

Mr. Viggers: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the means-tested benefits available through his Department and the agencies for which it is responsible (a) in May 1997 and (b) now. [182594]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The following table sets out means-tested benefits that applied on May 1997 and those that apply in July 2004. Further changes will be implemented for the 2004/05 academic year as a result of the Higher Education Act.

	May 1997	July 2004
Higher Education
Full-time students	Student grant (mandatory awards from LEAs).	Grants for fees.
	Grants for dependants—adults and children.	Grants for dependants—adults and children.
	Travelling expenses.	Travel grant.
	Disabled students allowances.	Student loan (25 per cent. means-tested).
	Discretionary access funds.	Discretionary hardship fund.
		Hardship loan.
Part-time Students	No means-tested benefits available.	Part-time student loan.
Further Education	Learner support funds.	Learner support funds.
		Education maintenance allowance.
		Adult learning grants.
School Age	Free school meals.	Free school meals.
	Free school milk.	Free school milk.
	Remission of charges for the cost of board and lodging while attending residential school trips.	Remission of charges for the cost of board and lodging while attending residential school trips.

 
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Non-departmental Public Bodies

Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many non-departmental public bodies for which his Department is responsible have been (a) established and (b) abolished since 1997. [182942]

Mr. Charles Clarke: Since 1997,14 Executive, Advisory and Tribunal NDPBs have been established, 11 have been abolished and one ceased to be an NDPB and was de-classified as an NDPB.

Pupil Funding (Harwich)

Mr. Ivan Henderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much funding per pupil was spent in the Harwich constituency in each year since 1997. [184997]

Mr. Miliband: The information requested is submitted to the Department according to local education authority areas rather than constituency level. The figures provided are for Essex LEA and are shown in the following table.
Net current expenditure (after recharges) per pupil—Cash terms

	Total
1997–98	2,410
1998–99	2,640
1999–00	2,650
2000–01	2,880
2001–02	3,200
2002–03	3,410

Notes:
1. The financial data are taken from Essex LEAs' Section 52 Outturn Statement submitted to the DfES from 1999–2000 onwards and the ODPM's RO1 statement previously. 2002–03 data are subject to change by the LEA. Section 52 is collected at local authority level, not constituency level, so the figures provided are for Essex LEA. 1997–98 figures are for Essex LEA prior to local government reorganisation. From 1998–99 onwards parts of Essex LEA became Southend and Thurrock LEAs. 1999–2000 figures reflect the return of GM schools to local authority maintenance.
2. The outturn 2002–03 tables captured the data in a fundamentally different way to the previous years. Categories were aligned with the Consistent Financial Reporting framework and the spending by LEAs was no longer split by school sector. This change in calculation is identified by the use of italics. The 2002–03 figure is calculated by taking all the LEA expenditure, excluding CERA and Youth and Community, and dividing it by the FTE pupil numbers in maintained pre-primary, primary, secondary and special schools.
3. The figures shown are calculated by dividing the LEA expenditure by the number of pupils in maintained establishments, Essex has a large proportion of its pre-primary pupils educated outside mainstream establishments. If these are taken into account then the unit cost in 2001–02 reduces to approximately £3,110 and in 2002–03 to £3,300.
4. Net current expenditure (NCE) includes expenditure within schools and also that incurred centrally by the LEA.
5. Pupil data are drawn from the Annual Schools Census adjusted to be on a financial year basis. Figures are rounded to the nearest £10.

School Halls (East Sussex)

Charles Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many new school halls have been approved for primary schools in East Sussex in
 
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each of the last 10 years; and how many applications for new school halls for primary schools in East Sussex have been rejected in each of the last 10 years. [185071]

Mr. Miliband: We do not hold the information requested. The majority of capital support is allocated to schools and local education authorities by formula, and they decide how to invest it in line with their asset management plans.

In 2001–02 there were five projects in East Sussex awarded funding under the Spaces for Sports and Arts programme operated by Sport England. This programme was intended to increase community and curricula use in primary schools.

School Leaving Age

Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the average age of school leavers in (a) Great Britain and (b) Havering was in (i) 1999, (ii) 2001 and (iii) 2003. [184252]

Mr. Miliband: The data are not collected centrally. In England, a pupil ceases to be of compulsory school age on the last Friday in June in the school year in which he reaches the age of sixteen. This means that pupils will be aged between around sixteen years and ten months and fifteen years and ten months when they leave school.

School Workload Agreement

Alan Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what assessment he has made of the number of schools that will be able to fund the implementation of the School Workload Agreement in 2005–06 and 2006–07; [184660]

(2) what options head teachers can follow in order to release funds to implement the requirements of the schools remodelling agreement; [184658]

(3) what mechanisms are in place to ensure the successful implementation of the School Workforce Agreement in all schools for 2005–06; [184659]

(4) what assessment he has made of the impact of reductions in numbers of teachers and teaching assistants on the introduction of planning, preparation and assessment time for all teachers. [184661]

Mr. Miliband: I refer the hon. Member to the written statement I laid before the House on Tuesday 3 July on school funding for 2005–06, Official Report, column 55WS. On the same day there was also a press notice issued by the Department (DfES press notice 2004/0137) which included a statement welcoming the school funding settlement by the Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group (made up of the majority of the school workforce unions and other partners).

The written statement to the House sets out how we have considered, with our partner signatories, the costs of implementation of the National Agreement. It announces what funds will be available to schools to implement the Agreement in 2005–06.

From 2006 we will provide guaranteed three-year budgets for every school, which will give head teachers and governors unprecedented financial security and confidence, and the ability to plan for the future.
 
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Practical advice and support is available to assist successful implementation at school level, from the national network of LEA remodelling advisers and from the National Remodelling Team—NRT (part of National College for School Leadership). The NRT website, www.remodelling.org, contains a range of strategies and models based on real school level case studies on managing in the changes and will include shortly, a toolkit and resources pack specifically on guaranteeing planning, preparation and assessment time for teachers.

In addition, from September, up to 10,000 schools will have access to workshops and consultancy as part of the second year of the Financial Management in Schools programme. This builds on the first year of this programme which saw thousands of schools benefit from the programme.

We will continue to monitor trends in the schools workforce through the Annual Schools Census each January. There are now 427,800 full-time equivalent teachers—28,600 more than in 1997 and the highest number since 1981—and the number of support staff has increased to 241,700, having more than doubled since 1997. These figures illustrate the trend of the significant increases in teachers and support staff since 1997. The next School Workforce Volume will be available in the autumn.

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