States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance 1997-2000) Amendment Regulations 1998 (No. 1) 1998 No. 280
EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rules 1998 No. 280
Minute No. 13 of 1998 - Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs
Subject- States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 1996
States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance 1997-2000) Amendment Regulations 1998
Section 91 of the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 1996 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations for the purposes of the Act.
The purpose of these regulations is to amend the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance 1997-2000) Regulations 1997 (the Regulations) to allow the appropriations under the Act for recurrent and capital grants for primary and secondary education for the period 1 January 1998 to 31 December 1998 to be varied to reflect supplementation for price movements.
Subsection 78(1) of the Act provides that the regulations may state for a particular year, numbers to be used to vary the amounts of recurrent and capital grants, respectively, as specified in the Schedules to the Act in relation to that year. Subsection 78(2) of the Act allows the amounts set out in the formulas in subsections 70(1), 73(2) and 74(2) of the Act to also be varied by the "stated recurrent number" for a program year.
These regulations amend the Regulations to specify a 'stated recurrent number' in respect of recurrent grants, and a 'stated capital number' in respect of capital grants for the 1998 calender year. The 'stated recurrent number' and the 'stated capital number' were previously provided for in the Regulations for the 1997 program year and are unchanged. Appropriation for 1999 and 2000 will be adjusted by numbers specified in regulations to be made in those years.
The amounts of recurrent and capital grants to be provided to States for specific purposes are set out in the Schedules for each program year and are to be supplemented each year to meet the costs of inflation by multiplying the amounts in the Schedules by the relevant numbers set out in the Regulations. Supplementation applies to programmes for both government and non-government schools.
In accordance with subsection 78(1) of the Act, recurrent grants are supplemented after the Minister has considered changes in the Average Government School Recurrent Costs (AGSRC) index and capital grants are supplemented by the Building Price Index (BPI) published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The AGSRC index used for recurrent grants supplementation is based on movements in Average Government School Costs, excluding capital costs associated with the provision of buildings and grounds, with modifications for one-off costs such as redundancy payments and the exclusion of the Commonwealth's own outlays. The AGSRC data is maintained by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. The latest available AGSRC is for the 1996/97 financial year.
These regulations will provide for recurrent grants for 1998 to be supplemented for the movement in the AGSRC index between the 1995/96 and 1996/97 financial years of 4.6% and for capital grants for 1998 to be supplemented by the BPI for cost movements between December 1996 and December 1997 of 1.4% resulting in a recurrent grants number of 1.046 and a capital grants number of 1.014, as determined by the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs after considering the above changes in the AGSRC and the BPI.
The effect of these regulations will be to provide an additional $154.8 million in 1999 over the legislated amount for the recurrent programmes and $4.1 million the 1998 program year for the capital grants programmes.
A Regulation Impact Statement is not required because these regulations have no impact on business.
These regulations commence on the date of Gazettal.