Footnote 187: Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 322-24, 330. Footnote 188: This does not include children fed at Day Industrial Schools, Open Air Schools or, with one or two exceptions, Special Schools for Mentally or Physically Defective Children. Footnote 189: This number represents the average attendance at the ordinary Elementary Schools, not the total number on the rolls. (Statistics of Public Education in England and Wales, 1911-12, Part I., pp. 27, 333.) In most towns where the Act has been adopted the amount spent on food is well within the limit of the halfpenny rate. In 1911-12, only Bradford and Stoke-on-Trent exceeded the limit, the latter (by an inconsiderable sum) owing to the coal strike. At Bradford the rate has almost from the first been annually exceeded by a considerable amount.[190] This excess is due partly to the numbers fed (a large proportion of the children receiving breakfasts as well as dinners), partly to the fact that the meals are continued throughout the holidays. The Local Government Board Auditor has regularly surcharged the excess expenditure, but the Finance Committee defrays it out of the Corporation trading profits, which are not subject to the Local Government Board audit. Footnote 190: In 1908-9, by L1,645; in 1909-10, by L2,370; in 1910-11, by L1,163, and in 1911-12, by L374. (Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 26; Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1910, p. 304; ditto for 1911, p. 317.) The limitation of the rate has in some towns undoubtedly restricted operations. In 1909, for instance, the Workington Education Committee were reluctantly obliged, owing to the exhaustion of the funds raised by the halfpenny rate, to stop the meals at a time of great distress.[191] At East Ham, the product of a halfpenny rate not being sufficient for a whole year, meals can only be given during the winter months.[192] Footnote 191: _Hansard_, April 23, 1909, 5th Series, Vol. 3, pp. 1862-1863. A similar complaint was received from Hartlepool. (_Ibid._) Footnote 192: See Minutes of Kingston-on-Hull Provision of Meals Sub-Committee, March 24, 1911, Appendix, p. 16. The abortive Bills introduced in 1908 and the following years by Labour members contained a clause that the limitation of the rate should be abolished.