1.  EDUCATION SPENDING TRENDS, 1997-98 TO 2005-06

  1.1  In a memorandum produced for the Committee in advance of David Bell's evidence session, I included a table that showed real terms spending on each phase of education in each year since 2000-01. This table was different from the one made available to the Committee in previous years because the 2006 Departmental Report had dropped the key all-education spending table that had been published in departmental reports. The omission of this table was particularly problematic for the Committee as it meant there was no simple presentation of real terms expenditure, showing different parts of the education system, current and capital, for the full period since 1997-98.

  1.2  In response to a series of questions from the Chairman, the Department has now re-created the lost table, which is included in a DfES letter to the Committee.[12] Table A of the DfES document shows, for central and local government together, real terms spending on different parts of the education system for each year from 1997-98 to 2005-06. To make analysis easier, this information is also presented (as Table B) indexed to 1997-98.

  1.3  It is now relatively easy to see where expenditure has risen fastest and slowest. Schools' capital has seen the largest real terms increases, while higher education support has fallen sharply. Under fives have received relatively larger increases in current spending than primary or secondary, while further education has had bigger increases than higher education. There has been significant overall real terms rise in education expenditure since 1997-98, though the Government has clearly given priority to some phases.

  1.4  With the Committee's encouragement, there must be a good chance this key table will be included in next year's departmental report.

  1.5  The Department has also, at the request of the Committee, re-presented figures for real terms spending per pupil/student to cover the whole period from 1997-98 to 2007-08. See "Extended Table 8.4", "Extended Table 8.7" and "Extended Table 8.8" in the DfES's response to the Chairman.[13]

  1.6  It is clear the Department has had to work very hard to produce these consistent, longer-term, time-series. There are many notes and footnotes to qualify the tables, which suggest problems arising because of changes in responsibilities and other reforms to the structure, functions and finance of public provision. However, unless the Committee is presented with consistent and comprehensible numbers, it will be hard (if not impossible) for Parliament to fulfil its role of holding the Executive to account. This is an issue with wider implications for all select committees.

2.  PRESENTATION OF THE DEPARTMENTAL REPORT

  2.1  The Department has also attempted to explain why so much of the 2006 Departmental Report had been changed in comparison to those published in previous years. Content, lay-out, tables and much else had been altered compared with the 2005 report. The DfES states it "believes the changes, whilst not fundamental, have improved the clarity of the Departmental Report. They reflect the Department's strong engagement with, and understanding of, its stakeholders". However, "No outside institutions were formally consulted on the changes".

  2.2  The Committee, as the key user of the report, was not consulted. The Department has altered the chapter headings, lay-out and contents of the report in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Some of the contents are kept from one year to the next, but others are dropped. The regularity of change makes it virtually impossible to follow the thread of policy and funding. The previous section discussed the removal, in 2006, of the key expenditure table. Other items come and go as new initiatives wax and wane.

  2.3  It would greatly assist the Committee if the Department could keep broadly the same lay-out and contents in its departmental reports from 2007 onwards. When changes are made, they should be explained. Key tables should be retained. Crucially, the Committee should be consulted on any major changes proposed.

3.  THE INCREASING COMPLEXITY OF GOVERNMENT

  3.1  The Secretary of State, in his covering letter to the Chairman, describes the questions posed to his Department as "rather complicated". In reality, the questions were not, in themselves, complicated. They asked for comprehensible and consistent information to allow the Committee to be able to understand broad trends in public expenditure on education.

  3.2  Government itself is now so complex that even the DfES finds it difficult to present tables and text that make such understanding possible. The key barriers to Parliamentary scrutiny are as follows:

—    changes of responsibility from local to central government, eg, ring-fencing of schools' spending;

—    changes of responsibility from one phase of education to another, eg, transfer of Sixth Forms from schools to FE;

—    new institutions set up to run services (possibly outside the public sector), eg, academies;

—    new accounting rules, eg, the move to resource accounting;

—    new Treasury guidance on lay-out of publications, eg, this year's Departmental Report;

—    PFI/PPP projects that blur the border between current and capital expenditure, eg, a part of schools' capital programme;

—    changes in the treatment of pensions, eg, FE from 2001-02; and

—    different ways of measuring student numbers, eg, in HE in 2005-06.

  3.3  There is a risk that public trust will be undermined if the DfES programme becomes so "complicated" that no one can understand what is happening to government expenditure over time.

July 2006

13   Ev 46-47