BOARD OF EDUCATION. MEMORANDUM ON THE BOARD OF EDUCATION ESTIMATES, 1928. 1. Board's Estimates.-The Estimate of the expenditure of the Board of Education in 1928 (Class IV, Vote 1) is £41,215,828 net, being a decrease of £616,192 from the adjusted figure of the Vote for 1927. The sum voted for 1927 was £44,307,020, and this becomes £41,832,020 when adjusted by deductions of £35,000 in respect of a service now transferred to the Ministry of Labour (Class V, Vote 9) and of £2,440,000 in respect of Teachers' Pension Contributions now appropriated in aid of the Board's Vote. The following table compares this figure with the Estimates and the net expenditure of recent years : * After adjustment for pension contributions. (32205) Wt. 2630/67 1500 5/28 Harrow G.304. A 3 The 2. The Estimates Summarised.-The summary by subheads will be found on page 6 of the Estimates themselves. summary by groups is as follows: As explained below, the large apparent increase in grants is chiefly due to grants amounting to £1,260,000 in respect of Employers' Contributions for teachers' pensions. 3. General Features.-(i) The net burden on the Exchequer is lighter, by £616,192, than in 1927. The chief reason for this is that the employers' contributions for teachers' pensions, at 5 per cent. of the teachers' salaries, begin to be payable from 1st April, 1928, in accordance with Section 9 of the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925. The Act provides that this new expenditure of Local Education Authorities shall for the purposes of grant be treated as if it were expenditure on teachers' salaries. Most of the employers' contributions (£2,400,000 out of £2,500,000) are payable by Local Education Authorities, and the amount of grant payable to them within the year upon this expenditure is estimated at £1,210,000. Grants estimated at £50,000 are also payable on the remaining £100,000 of contributions that will be received from employers other than Local Education Authorities. (ii) Both the teachers' and the employers' contributions are shown (gross) in these Estimates as Appropriations in Aid. The practice followed in 1926 and 1927 of paying the teachers' pension contributions to the Exchequer as Extra Receipts has prevented the Board's Vote or Accounts from showing the true amount borne by the Exchequer in respect of teachers' pensions, and has falsified comparisons of the Board's Vote with previous years. These defects are now remedied. On page 6 of the Estimates will be found a cash statement of the Receipts and Payments in respect of teachers' pensions, and the contributions will, of course, be credited to the Superannuation Account under Section 15 of the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925. (iii) The payments to pensioners, together with refunds of contributions to teachers leaving the profession, cause an estimated increased expenditure of £345,865 from the Board's Vote: this approximates to the average annual increase under this heading. (iv) There is a large apparent increase of £947,800 under Subhead D.1, grants to Local Education Authorities for Higher Education. This is due partly to the inclusion of £175,000 as grants on employers' contributions, but also to a transfer of about £400,000 from Subhead D.2, grants to non-Local Education Authorities for Higher Education. In the five years 1922-27, as explained in the Estimates Memorandum of last year, the Board removed the overlap between their own direct grants to non-Local Education Authority Schools and their grants to Local Education Authorities in respect of the Authorities' expenditure in aiding those schools. As a consequence, many of the Secondary Schools have elected to receive grant from the Local Education Authorities only, so that the number receiving direct grants from the Board has fallen from 624 on 31st March, 1926, to 240 on 31st March, 1928, and this change causes a diminution under Subhead D.2, and an increase under Subhead D.1. (v) The balances of grants payable to Local Education Authorities in 1928 are exceptionally light. The amounts provided for payment of grants to Local Education Authorities within the year (Subheads C.1 and D.1) contain (1) instalments, reckoned at 90 per cent. of the grant estimated to accrue due for the year and (2) balances of grant for previous years. If the actual course of expenditure in previous years could have been exactly foreseen, and the instalments accurately related thereto, the balances of grant payable to Local Education Authorities in 1928 would have been 10 per cent. of the estimated grants for 1927, viz. : Elementary £ 3,200,600 546,300 Total .. 3,746,900 But in the adjustment of grants for previous years it has been found that the actual expenditure of Local Education Authorities has fallen. short of the estimates upon which the instalments were based; and the amounts provided in these Estimates for payment of balances (vi) The cost of the Board's administration and inspection shows a decline for the third year in succession (see paragraph 18 below). |