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26 July 2007 : Column 1400W—continued
Schools: Catering
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what estimate he has made of the proportion of school kitchens which need (a) rebuilding and (b) capital investment. [152133]
Jim Knight: The Department has not made these estimates.
In 2006, the Department and the School Food Trust worked together to identify where schools have currently no kitchen provision. In October 2006, the School Food Trust report ‘School Meal Take Up in England’ estimated that about 3,500 schools in England do not have a cooking kitchen, though some of these may have facilities to regenerate and serve brought-in food.
Based on returns from 19 authorities who attended a conference in London in December, targeted at authorities with high numbers of schools without any kitchen facilities, 1,959 or 62 per cent. of schools in these authorities do not have kitchens. While demonstrating that there are areas with concentrations of schools without kitchens, these figures do not represent the national picture.
Schools: Drugs
Mr. Rob Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many drug tests were administered on (a) teachers and (b) students by schools in each local education authority in each of the last 10 years; how many tested positive for drug use in each case; and what steps have been taken against teachers and students who have failed drug tests. [151218]
Kevin Brennan: Schools do not have to inform the Department if they wish to introduce drug testing for pupils and we do not collect information about those that do, the methods used or the results of their tests. However, we know of three maintained schools which have tested pupils for drugs. We do not collect any information about drug testing on teachers.
Schools: East Sussex
Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much schools funding was allocated per pupil in (a) Eastbourne and (b) East Sussex in each year since 1997, broken down by age group. [151367]
Jim Knight: The requested information is allocated to local authorities. Eastbourne is part of the East Sussex local authority and the revenue funding figures per pupil aged 3-10 and 11-15 for 1997-98 to 2005-06 are shown in the following table:
| Primary (3 to 10-year-olds) | Secondary (11 to 15-year-olds) | |
| Notes: 1. Price Base: Real terms at 2005-06 prices, based on GDP deflators as at 27 September 2006. 2. Figures reflect relevant sub-blocks of standard spending assessment/education formula spending (EFS) settlements and exclude the pensions transfer to EFS. 3. Total funding also includes all revenue grants in DCFS departmental expenditure limits relevant to pupils aged 3-15 and exclude education maintenance allowances (EMAs) and grants not allocated at LEA level. 4. The pupil numbers used to convert £ million figures to £ per pupil are those underlying the SSA/EFS settlement calculations. 5. Rounding: Figures are rounded to the nearest £10. 6. Status: Some of the grant allocations have not been finalised. If these do change, the effect on the funding figures is expected to be minimal. | ||
The revenue per pupil figures shown in the following table are taken from the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) introduced in April 2006 and are in cash terms. They are not comparable with those for the years 1997-98 to 2005-06 because the introduction of the DSG in 2006-07 fundamentally changed how local authorities are funded.
The 1997-98 to 2005-06 figures are based on education formula spending (EFS) which formed the education part of the Local Government Finance Settlement, plus various grants. This was an assessment of what local authorities needed to fund education rather than what they spent. In addition, the DSG has a different coverage to EFS. EFS comprised a schools block and an LEA block (to cover LEA central functions) whereas DSG only covers the school block. LEA block items are still funded through DCLG’s Local Government Finance Settlement but education items cannot be separately identified. Consequently, there is a break in the Department’s time series as the two sets of data are not comparable. An alternative time series is currently under development.
To provide a comparison for 2006-07 DSG, the Department have isolated the schools block equivalent funding in 2005-06; as described above this does not represent the totality of ‘education’ funding in that year. As the DSG is just a mechanism for distributing funding there is not a primary/secondary split available. There are other grants that support the schools budget, these are not included in the provided DSG figures. The figures are for all funded pupils aged 3-15.
| DSG 2005-06 | Figures |
| Notes: 1. The revenue funding per pupil figures only run to 2005-06 because we cannot provide a consistent time series beyond that year as the introduction of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) in 2006-07 fundamentally changed how local authorities are funded. The 1997-98 to 2005-06 figures are based on education formula spending (EFS) which formed the education part of the Local Government Finance Settlement, plus various grants. This was an assessment of what local authorities needed to fund education rather than what they spent. In 2006-07 funding for schools changed with the introduction of the DSG which is based largely on an authority’s previous spending. 2. In addition, DSG has a different coverage to EFS: EFS comprised a schools block and an LEA block (to cover LEA central functions) whereas DSG only covers the school block. LEA block items are still funded through DCLG’s Local Government Finance Settlement but education items cannot be separately identified. This means we have a break in our time series as the two sets of data are not comparable, an alternative time series is currently under development. 3. To provide a comparison for 2006-07 DSG, we have isolated the schools block equivalent funding in 2005-06; as described above this does not represent the totality of 'education' funding in that year. 4. Some of the grant allocations have not been finalised. If these do change, the effect on the funding figures is expected to be minimal. | |
Schools: Finance
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) how much deprivation-related funding is available to English schools in 2007-08; [152446]
(2) how much deprivation-related funding was allocated to each local education authority (LEA) in the last period for which figures are available; how much of this was passed on by LEAs on the basis of deprivation; and if he will make a statement. [152453]
Jim Knight:
Funding for local authorities within the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) includes an element for deprivation. In 2007-08 the notional amount available to local authorities to distribute to schools
from the DSG and grants totals £3,808 million, with the amounts given to individual local authorities as part of the DSG provided in the attached annex. (This amounts to £2,730 million and excludes the additional grants to local authorities which do not currently have the deprivation element separately identified). It is not possible at present to say how much is passed on by local authorities to schools on the basis of deprivation. However, over the summer and early autumn of 2007 the Government Offices Children’s Services Advisors are to discuss with their local authorities how much funding each authority is passing on to schools on the basis of deprivation and how this can be improved where necessary. As part of the process, Department officials will be collecting baseline information regarding the distribution in 2007-08 in order that change can be tracked in future years. Guidance to authorities is to be published during August 2007.
| Annex A: Notional deprivation funding within 2007-08 DSG | ||
| £ million | ||
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