Schools : eighth report from the Select Committee on Estimates together with the Minutes of Evidence taken before Sub-Committee E and Appendices, Session 1952-1953.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Estimates
Date:
1953
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Schools : eighth report from the Select Committee on Estimates together with the Minutes of Evidence taken before Sub-Committee E and Appendices, Session 1952-1953. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    25. Your Committee were not concerned to investigate the conditions which existed in a number of selected local authorities, but rather to obtain an impression, through an examination of a few representative cities and counties, of the situation which exists throughout England and Wales. Their general conclusion is that while the gap between house and school building on new estates may not widen appreciably, it cannot possibly be closed while the amount of capital investment now going into school building is insufficient to carry out the policy of the Government that “the school building programme should, in Annex 2. general, keep pace with the housing programme”. Often, however, the gap can be narrowed by close co-ordination on the part of local authorities. 26. While the evidence suggested that on the whole co-operation was good between the Ministry of Education, the Scottish Education Qs. 341, Department and the local authorities, it is obvious that districts vary oe in this respect. To avoid schools lagging unduly behind houses the 4417-9) 1397, closest co-operation is essential not only between the Government on 1570-85, the one hand and local authorities on the other but between those 1628-31, different bodies within the same authority which have responsibility for se housing and education. Where one and the same committee is respon- : sible obviously co-ordination presents fewer problems. Your Committee recommend that the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Scottish Education Department and the Department of Health for Scotland should make every effort to ensure the utmost co-ordination between all those concerned, so that the gap between house and school building should be narrowed during the immediate years ahead. TRANSPORT 27. One of the results of the time lag between school and house building is the necessity for local authorities to spend a considerable amount of money on the provision of extra transport to take children to schools which are some distance from their homes. It was not possible to obtain from the Ministry of Education a statement of the Qs. 2000-1. amount spent on the transport of children in England and Wales directly resulting from insufficient school accommodation. One witness did, Annex 6. however, submit an estimate for 1952-53, obtained from forty-seven local education authorities, which totalled £135,000. Evidence of the Q. 854. magnitude of this problem was given by Birmingham, which showed that 1,500 children were being transported from one estate, and that Q. 847. in some cases children living on new estates were being transported to old schools in the districts from which they had moved. In this city Qs. 873. there has been a steep rise in transport costs from £800 in 1946-47 Annex 11. to £17,000 in 1952-53. These figures do not include normal transport costs under the Act of 1944 which alone amount to £5.000,000 annually Q. 2005. in England and Wales. 28. In Scotland during 1951-52, the annual expenditure on transport Annex 4. was approximately £125,000, of which Glasgow accounted for £103,900. Qs- 263-4, In evidence on behalf of that city it was stated that economies imposed g,’ {117 since 1949 would have been sufficient to build at least four secondary 1119.” schools and that the annual expenditure on transport, which is being used to convey children from the housing estates on the periphery of the city to the old schools in the central areas where they previously
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