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Teaching Posts And Ancillary Jobs

Volume 978: debated on Monday 4 February 1980

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asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many teaching posts and ancillary jobs he estimates will be cut as a result of his proposals.

It is for each local authority to decide precisely how to implement the Government's expenditure plans in the light of its local needs and circumstances, and it is not possible to predict with accuracy the aggregate effect of their decisions. The Government's plans as set out in Cmnd 7746, and reflected in the 1980–81 rate support grant settlement, allow for a 3·7 per cent.—or about 18,000—reduction in school teaching staff between 1978–79 and 1980–81, against an estimated fall in pupil numbers of 4·7 per cent. Non-teaching staff are employed by local authorities to carry out a wide variety of functions concerned with schools and they are not separately identified in the annual statistics available to my Department: the Government's plans allow for expenditure per pupil on schools non-teaching costs—including ancillary staff—to be 2 per cent. higher in real terms in 1980–81 than in 1978–79.