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Academies Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for his response. I am glad that the governing boards will be kept informed about the financial assistance grants. On needs versus numbers, I am still a little uncertain. If a free school is to be set up, it will have projections of how many pupils it will take but will not necessarily know how many it is going to enrol. How will the Government set its grant in the first place? Is the first year of grant taken from local authority funding when they do not know how the school is going to do? Will the Minister copy to me the letter that he writes about the York ready reckoner? I am a little unhappy about that, because it seems to set expectations unduly high for a quite a lot of schools. The bulk of money kept back by local authorities goes to meet special educational needs and transport. When that is deducted, the sum likely to be distributed will not be very great. The ready reckoner is leading a number of schools to have quite inflated ideas as to how much they might receive. If the Minister is unable to respond to any of these issues now, perhaps he could write to me. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 2 withdrawn.