Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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STATES GRANTS (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ASSISTANCE 1997-2000) AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 1999 (NO. 1) 1999 NO. 223

STATUTORY RULES 1999 No. 223

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 1999 (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.

The States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance 1997-2000) Amendment Regulations 1999 specify numbers for the variation of amounts of recurrent grants for both the 1999 and 2000 program years and a number for variation of amounts of capital grants for the program years 1999 through to 2003. Recurrent grants for 2000 and capital grants for 2000 through to 2003 will be adjusted further by numbers specified in regulations to be made in 2000.

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 Average Government School Costs (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 the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. The latest available AGSRC is for the 1997-98 financial year.

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

The regulations provide for recurrent grants for 1999 and 2000 to be supplemented for the movement in the AGSRC index between the 1996-97 and 1997-98 financial years of 5.5%. Capital grants for 1999 through to 2003 are to be supplemented by the BPI for cost movements between December 1997 and December 1998 of 2.1%. This results in a 'recurrent grants number' of 1.055 and a 'capital grants number' of 1.021, as determined by the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs after considering the above changes in the AGSC and the BPI.

The effect of the regulations is to provide an additional $205.2m in 1999 and $208.9m in 2000 over the legislated amounts for the recurrent programmes and $6.3m in each year from 1999 through to 2003 for the capital grants programmes.

A Regulation Impact Statement was not required because the regulations have no impact on business.

The regulations commenced on the date of Gazettal.

Details of the regulations are attached.