Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

[Index] [Search] [Download] [Related Items] [Help]

STATES GRANTS (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ASSISTANCE 1997-2000) AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 2000 (NO. 1) 2000 NO. 303

STATUTORY RULES 2000 No. 303

Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs

States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 1996

States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance 1997-2000) Amendment Regulations 2000 (No. 1)

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.

Subsection 78(1) of the Act provides that the regulations may state for a particular program year, numbers to be used for the variation of amounts of recurrent and capital grants, respectively, specified in Schedules in relation to that year.

Subsection 78(1A) of the Act provides that before the Governor-General makes regulations, the Minister must take into consideration changes in the amount known as the Average Government School Costs (AGSC) published from time to time by the Ministerial Council of Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA).

Subsection 78(1B) of the Act provides that before the Governor-General makes regulations, the Minister must take into consideration changes in the Building Price Index published from time to time by the Australian Statistician.

The Regulations amend the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Regulations 1997 to specify numbers for the 2000 programme year in respect of recurrent grants and for the 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 programme years in respect of capital grants.

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.

Recurrent grants are supplemented in line with the Average Government School Recurrent Costs (AGSRC) index. The AGSRC index used for this purpose is based on movements in AGSC 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 MCEETYA. The latest available data is for the 1998-99 financial year.

Capital grants are supplemented by the Building Price Index (BPI) using data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The Regulations provide for recurrent grants for 2000 to be supplemented for the movement in the AGSRC index between the 1997-98 and 1998-99 financial years of 7.4%. Capital grants for 2000 are to be supplemented by the BPI for cost movements between December 1998 and December 1999 of 1.1%. This results in a 'recurrent grants number' of 1.133 and a 'capital grants number' of 1.032, as determined by the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs after considering the above changes in the AGSC and the BPI.

The Regulations provide an additional $300.3 million in 2000 over the legislated amounts for the recurrent programmes and $3.4 million in 2000 for the capital grants program.

The Regulations commenced on the date of Gazettal.

Details of the Regulations are attached.