Westminster City Council

Ms Buck
To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what grants his Department and its predecessors made to Westminster City Council in each year since 2005-06; and what grants are planned for 2009-10.

Jim Knight
Tables showing the grants allocated by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and its predecessors1, to Westminster city council for each year since 2005-06, and planned for 2009-10, broken down between revenue and capital funding, will be placed in the Libraries.

The revenue grant totals for 2006-07 onwards are not comparable with figures in 2005-06, because the introduction of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) in 2006-07 fundamentally changed how local authorities are funded for education services.

Before 2006-07 local authorities were funded through education formula spending (EFS). This formed part of the annual local government finance settlement. EFS comprised school functions and local education authority (LEA) central functions, whereas DSG only covers the school functions. The DSG is based on each local authority’s spend on schools in 2005-06, up rated each year for cost pressures and adjusted for changes in pupil numbers. LEA central functions are still funded through the local government finance settlement but cannot be separately identified. Consequently, there is a break in the Department’s time series as the two sets of data are not comparable. For information the EFS figure for Westminster in 2005-06 was £97.5 million.

The Teachers Pay Reform Grant was transferred to Dedicated Schools Grant in 2006-07.

Children's Services grant transferred to the Formula Grant paid by the Department for Communities and Local Government in 2008-09.

Capital figures exclude PFI credit allocations, and supported borrowing allocations as part of Building Schools for the Future. Allocations for targeted capital projects are shown in the year the project started.

1 The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) were established under machinery of government changes on 28 June 2007. The tables only cover those areas of responsibility for children and schools held by their predecessor the Department for Education and Skills and the DCSF