To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what correlation there is between the level of standard spending assessment per pupil and the league table of secondary school performance results.

For English local education authorities, excluding the Isles of Scilly, in 1991–92 the SSA per pupil for 11 to 15-year-olds was negatively correlated with the corresponding proportion of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A to C. However, authorities with similar levels of SSA per head exhibit a wide variation of performance at GCSE.