(2) how many maintained secondary schools have not yet attained specialist status; how many of these have failed to meet the required minimum standards for specialist school application; and if he will make a statement.
The estimate of the annual cost of increasing the funding of all maintained secondary schools to at least the level obtained by those schools granted specialist status is around £39 million.
There are 408 maintained secondary schools outside the programme. Since 2003, of those schools, 153 have applied but not met the standard for specialist school status.