Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 218 - 219)

TUESDAY 14 DECEMBER 2004

DCMS, DFES, ODPM

  Q218  Chairman: Good morning. I am not quite sure what the collective noun for ministers is?

  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: A gaggle!

  Chairman: Whatever it is, you are it! Thank you very much indeed for coming. We are going to get a lot of value out of you, I hope. Could I make an apology right at the beginning? I may have to leave before the end because of the unfortunate coinciding of these sittings with the business on the floor of the House. I want to be in the Chamber from the beginning of the Mental Capacity Bill?

  Q219  Ms Shipley: Ministers, the Audit Commission, when it came in front of us—Minister for Education, you are going to be particularly interested in this—gave evidence—and, I am sure you will agree, the Audit Commission is one of our most accurate repositories for this sort of information—that the decision was taken by central government to devolve money to schools to buy back school library services, and we were told that there was a very uneven pattern of identified expenditure on school library services in section 52 statements and that schools are not buying back into school library services even though the money was there devolved for them to do so. We know that you have had this raised with you recently, because sitting behind you are the Museums, Library and Archive Council and the Local Government Association are putting on record that they have been raising this with you a lot certainly in the last six months. What progress have you made on it?

  Mr Twigg: My understanding is that the Audit Commission evidence was not quite right, and we have had discussions with the Audit Commission since that the evidence provided by section 52 returns does not necessarily provide the basis for the conclusion that they then drew. I obviously accept that the provision is not consistent across the country. Part of the purpose of delegation is that those decisions are made by schools at school level.


 
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