The Education Standards Grants (Wales) Regulations 2002

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Section 484 of the Education Act 1996 enables the National Assembly for Wales to make regulations providing for the payment of grants in respect of expenditure incurred by local education authorities for or in connection with educational purposes which it appears to the National Assembly those authorities should be encouraged to incur in the interests of education in Wales. These Regulations provide for the payment of such grants. They re-enact, with some changes, the Education (Education Standards Grants) (Wales) Regulations 2001. The provisions of the Regulations, and the changes from the earlier Regulations, are outlined below.

Regulation 1: provides for citation, commencement and application. The Regulations come into force on 1st April 2002 and apply only in relation to Wales.

Regulation 2: contains definitions.

Regulation 3: provides for grants to be payable only in respect of expenditure incurred by a local education authority for or in connection with the purposes specified in the Schedule in a financial year, and only to the extent that the expenditure is approved for that year by the National Assembly for the purposes of the Regulations.

Regulation 4: provides for payment of grants in respect of expenditure incurred by local education authorities in making payments to third parties in respect of expenditure incurred by those third parties which would be eligible for grant if it were expenditure of the authority.

Regulation 5: provides for the rate at which grants are payable.

Regulations 6 to 8: set out the conditions which apply in respect of the payment of grants, including audit requirements. The date in regulation 6(5) for submitting a statement and auditor’s certificate to the National Assembly has been changed from 31st July to 31st October.

Regulation 9: allows the National Assembly to require a local education authority to supply it with information.

Regulation 10: allows the Assembly to impose additional requirements.

Regulation 11: allows the Assembly to require local education authorities to delegate spending decisions to school governing bodies.

Regulation 12: revokes earlier Regulations subject to transitional provisions.

Schedule: provides for the purposes for or in connection with which grants may be paid. The main changes to the Schedule are as follows:

• an amendment to paragraph 1(e) to reflect the fact that the standard task assessments for pupils at the end of key stage 1 have been scrapped with effect from the 2001-2002 school year;

• a new paragraph 1(l) to include support for initiatives during Wales Science Year;

• a new paragraph 2(g) to include training of school staff in the use of software for the new Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC);

• an amendment to paragraph 6(a) and a new paragraph 6(b) to include training of learning support assistants, through the medium of Welsh as well as the medium of English;

• an amendment to paragraph 6(c) to further encourage partnerships and co-operation between parents, schools and other public bodies, and extending such partnerships and co-operation to supporting the provision of speech and language therapy services;

• an amendment to paragraph 6(h) to encourage local education authorities to make arrangements to provide advice and information to parents of children with special educational needs, in place of the “named person” system;

• a new paragraph 6(i) to include measures to deal with disagreements regarding special educational needs provision;

• a new paragraph 10(e) extending training to cover appraisal arrangements for teachers and school performance management arrangements;

• the removal of the provisions relating to the payment of capital grants other than those relating to the provision and installation of information and communications technology and equipment and cabling for that technology and equipment, which are now included in paragraph 9(b). The other capital grant provisions are to be re-enacted as the Education (Capital Grants) (Wales) Regulations 2002.