To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 20 February 2008, Official Report, column 770W, on pupils: per capita costs, what the (a) current and (b) planned per capita costs are for students in Wirral. (189726)

The current per capita Dedicated Schools Grant guaranteed unit of funding is £3,765, and the guaranteed units of funding for 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 are £3,937, £4,089 and £4,269 respectively. The Dedicated Schools Grant is purely revenue funding and does not include any capital allocation. In addition to the Dedicated Schools Grant, there are other revenue grants for the period 2008 to 2011 that support the schools budget whose allocations have not yet been finalised and which are not reflected in the answer.

The capital element of allocations, included in the four figures in the following chart, can vary greatly from year to year. This is because capital grants are based on need as well as on pupil numbers, and form part of an expanding capital programme. Capital expenditure at local authority level may occur in a different year to the year of allocation, as it is dependent on a local authority's capital planning arrangements.