Ministers blasted in education fund row

The Commons Education Select Committee said in a report that dropping the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) and replacing it with a bursary scheme was “poorly executed”.

MPs also found that the Government allocated funding for student support for 16- to 18-year-olds for 2011-12 “far too late” to allow young people to make informed decisions.

It said: “The Government misjudged the scale of support necessary when announcing the abolition of the EMA, and precious months were lost while it revised its plans and consulted on the bursary proposals.”

The EMA scheme, which provided £560m worth of support to young people through weekly payments of between £10 and £30, has been replaced with a new fund worth £180m.

The Select Committee accepted that changes to student support were needed. However it says that delays on deciding who should receive funding “should not have been allowed to happen”.

Committee chairman Graham Stuart, the MP for Beverley and Holderness, said: “Young people taking life defining decisions at 16 need clear information on the support they may receive and deserve better than rushed and ill-thought-through reforms.”

Mr Stuart added: “Decisions on how much will be available for distribution by each school or college have been taken far too late, and it is 16-year-olds who have suffered uncertainty as a result.”