Schedule 13 - The Training and Development Agency for Schools
Education Bill [Lords]
3:30 pm
Mr Colin Pickthall (PPS (Rt Hon Jack Straw, Secretary of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; West Lancashire, Labour)
It may be my misunderstanding, but paragraph 5 states that
“The Agency ... must pay to their members such salaries or fees, and such travelling, subsistence and other allowances, as the Secretary of State may determine”.
I take it that “members” means board members. Am I right? Paragraph 6(2) states:
“The Agency may pay to their employees such remuneration and allowances as the Agency may determine.”
Paragraph 6(3) states:
“The employees are to be appointed on such other terms and conditions as the Agency may determine.”
Am I right in identifying what appears to be a contradiction, in that paragraph 5(1)(a) refers only to board members?
I shall make a wider point while I am on my feet. I am concerned that the schedule and the relevant clauses seem to contain an open-ended budget for the TTA. How and when is the overall budget for it determined? I hope that the agency will have to limit its expenditure, because the schedule and some previous clauses contain many sentences that suggest that it can spend whatever it likes on this and on that. What is the overall budget likely to be?