The Block Grant (Education Adjustments) (England) Regulations 1987

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations provide for the adjustment of the block grant payable to local authorities in England in respect of the financial year 1987/8 and subsequent years. The extent of the adjustment to be made is determined by reference to certain education expenditure of each authority during the year in question. In substance the Regulations provide for a re-allocation between authorities of this expenditure.

These Regulations supersede the Block Grant (Education Adjustments) (England) Regulations 1985 which cease to apply to expenditure incurred after 31 March 1987 (Regulation 10(1)). The main changes are first, that courses for the further training of teachers leading to a qualification of the City and Guilds of London Institute are now expressly excluded from those courses expenditure in connection with which counts as expenditure in connection with education of an advanced character (Regulation 3(2) and Schedule 2). Secondly changes have been made to Regulation 3(3) (which specifies the various kinds of expenditure incurred by local authorities in the exercise of their functions as education authorities to which the Regulations apply) so that the Regulations no longer apply to expenditure on the inservice training of teachers, youth and community workers, educational pyschologists and education advisers or inspectors or to expenditure on the training of educational psychologists. A further change to this Regulation increases the amount of expenditure from revenue on capital works to which the Regulations apply from £100,000 to £150,000 in respect of polytechnics and from £40,000 to £60,000 in respect of other establishments of further education (Regulation 3(3)(a)(ii)). Thirdly, the proportion of the costs of the provision of tuition for no area pupils which is to be taken into account for the purpose of the Regulations is increased from 45 per cent to 100 per cent (Regulation 5(2)(a)).

Information concerning expenditure to which the Regulations apply must be supplied to the Secretary of State under Regulation 4. Regulation 6 provides for the amount (determined under Regulation 5) of the total expenditure of the relevant kinds incurred by the authorities to be apportioned among individual authorities in accordance with formulae which take account respectively of the number of students belonging to the authority’s area attending a course in Schedule 2 and the number of school children for which it provides. Provision is made for converting the numbers of students (counted in accordance with Regulation 6(3)) who attend sandwich courses or who do not attend full-time into the equivalent number of students attending full-time.

Each authority’s grant is adjusted, under Regulation 8(1), by the amount by which the sum apportioned to it differs from its“allowable expenditure” (comprising an amount determined by the Secretary of State under Regulation 7 and a proportion of the authority’s actual education expenditure). A further adjustment is made under Regulation 8(3) if the Secretary of State has exercised powers under paragraph 1 of Schedule 10 to the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 to increase or decrease the total grant payable to authorities in England to take account of the uneven burden of education expenditure as between authorities in England and in Wales.

Similar Regulations made in 1985 are amended by Regulation 10(1) so as to apply only to expenditure incurred before the 31st March 1987. Regulation 10(2) provides that anything done under the 1985 Regulations with reference to expenditure incurred after the 31st March 1987 shall have effect as if done under the corresponding provision of these Regulations.