Clause 39 - Determination of specified budgets of LEA
Education Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Stephen Timms (Minister of State (School Standards), Department for Education and Skills; East Ham, Labour)
I listened with interest to what the hon. Gentleman said about the amendment. I was surprised to hear that he believes that some schools in his constituency have a smaller revenue budget now than they did in 1997. I should be grateful if he would send me details of those schools. The amount paid to every local education authority for its schools has increased substantially over the past four years, and will increase significantly this year, next year and the year after. We have also successfully increased the proportion of those budgets that is delegated to schools. I will examine with great interest the information that the hon. Gentleman sends to me.
In moving the amendment, the hon. Gentleman may not have taken account of our existing powers, for example, under section 52 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. The section 52 budget statement shows how much transitional funding is received by each former grant maintained school, so that information is already provided. Section 52 requires LEAs to produce annual budget and outturn statements containing such information as the Secretary of State may prescribe, and clause 42 of the Bill enables us to require schools to produce accounts containing such information as we may prescribe.
The extra funding for sixth forms was a local decision, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we have taken the amount we provided for sixth forms into account in determining the amount transferred to the learning and skills council for each area for 2002–03. That funding is clearly earmarked for sixth forms under the new arrangements.
In the light of what the hon. Gentleman said, I hope that he will welcome several elements of the Bill. I am sure that he would welcome the power of the Secretary of State to set a minimum schools' budget, which we will debate shortly. I hope that he would also welcome the introduction of the schools forums, which will provide a forum in every local education authority for discussion about budgets and other matters concerning the schools and the LEA.
Clause 42 would, in theory, enable us to require schools to provide details of funding they have received and expenditure that they have incurred in connection with specific initiatives. It would not be reasonable to do that; the Opposition have rightly raised some concerns about the work load in schools. It would be an enormous task if every school had to report the amount of money that it spent in relation to every curriculum change or every other initiative of the Secretary of State. I hope that on reflection the hon. Gentleman will agree that it would not be appropriate to impose that additional burden.
We have simplified the standards fund in a way that we estimate will save a great deal of time: 2.6 million hours a year across all the schools, or two and half weeks of someone's time in a typical school. We have significantly reduced the amount of paper that we now send to schools. We have made a pledge that 1,000 more trained bursars will be appointed during the lifetime of this Parliament. However, to impose an additional requirement of this magnitude would not be appropriate or helpful.
The Bill already includes powers to collect all the information that is necessary. I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would make sense to collect the detailed information that he has in mind. There is a principle that many of the detailed decisions about where funding should be allocated should appropriately be made at local level. That is the principle that informed many of the changes that we have made. Certainly, it underpins much of this part of the Bill. I think that the hon. Gentleman agrees with it, but it places a limit on the amount of prescription that should be imposed centrally about precisely how each element of funding is spent. I think that we have got the balance about right and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree.