To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will take steps to encourage local education authorities to reduce the number of non-teaching staff they employ.

In December we published proposals to require that, by April 1993, control of at least 85 per cent. of a local education authority's potential schools budget should be delegated to the school level. That is where the right decisions will be made.

Is not it a scandal that, out of every 10 education staff employed by local authorities four are in non-teaching jobs? Will my hon. Friend do more to ensure that resources intended for our schools reach their proper destination? Does he agree that local authorities, particularly Labour-controlled authorities, have a poor record in the education of our young people?

Yes. It is quite shocking that, out of their education budgets, authorities such as those in Cleveland and Coventry should make provision for almost as many non-teaching employees as teachers. We have set new requirements. All local education authorities could do more to delegate to the school level, and all should do so before April 1993.

Does the Minister agree that, however much is delegated to the school level, the main task is to help the teacher in the classroom? Does he agree that the employee ratio—people employed in classrooms, in education offices and in teacher back-up positions—is no measure of efficiency? Does he agree that what we want is proper back-up so that a professional job may be done in the classroom? We need adequate numbers of such people, and we need efficiency. Raw figures are not necessarily any measure of efficiency.

I do not agree. The best judge of the type of back-up that schools need are the heads, the teachers and the governors themselves. It is for them to decide what level, scope and scale of support services are necessary and for them, with their increased budgets, to decide where to purchase such services.