Wherever a new school is needed, the funding agency for grant maintained schools will have to consider whether a new grammar school should be built. Last night Gillian Shephard, the Secretary of State for Education, stressed that the Prime Minister's dream of seeing a grammar school in every town, expressed in a speech in Birmingham last September, would depend on the wishes of parents and governors."We are not proposing a return to a two-tier system. In the financial year to the end of March, they only met 40.3 per cent of the target set by Central Office - pounds 1.107m in donations against a target of pounds 2.746m. As head of the unit, he ran a six-strong team, co-ordinating the design and production of leaflets and posters for the next general election.Coincidentally, it was Ms Hoy who fielded calls about the management shake-up yesterday. This total was pounds 33,000 down on the 1994-95 tally of pounds 1.140m.Mr Speed's place is being taken by Tim Cowell OBE.Mr Earl, whose affair with Caroline Hoy, a Smith Square press officer, was highlighted in a tabloid newspaper a fortnight ago, is also moving job, from Director of the Elections Unit, to replace Mr Cowell.Mr Earl played an important role in trying to win the recent Hemsworth and Staffordshire South by-elections and the local government elections.

Figures revealed recently in the Independent showed local supporters are refusing to give cash payments and insisting that any money they give is in the form of loans.The leaked figures reveal a growing reluctance among constituency associations to dip into their pockets. Dr Mawhinney announced three months ago that the overdraft was down to pounds 2.5m.Mr Speed is said to have maintained ties with the constituency associations during a period when grassroots activists became disaffected with the Central Office machine. But his diplomacy has not produced a resurgence of donations from constituencies, fuelling questions as to where the money is really coming from. He added: "Jeffery was a very senior civil servant within the party hierarchy - to lose him now is a mystery."Another Tory described Mr Speed, who has been awarded the CBE, as the "ultimate party worker." A Smith Square stalwart, he is credited with having overseen the transformation of the party's finances, almost wiping-out the pounds 15m overdraft and building-up a war chest for the election.

At the same time as Jeffery Speed has departed, John Earl, a key member of the election campaigning team who was pilloried in a tabloid newspaper a fortnight ago for his extra- marital affair with a fellow Central Office worker, has changed job. A senior party insider said yesterday the resignation of Mr Speed, Director of Fund-Raising and the Treasurers' Department, was a big surprise in the run-up to the election, when the Tories' cash-generating exercise should be at its peak.He said Mr Speed, the brother of a senior Tory backbencher, Sir Keith Speed, did not agreewith Dr Brian Mawhinney, the combative Conservative Party Chairman "He did not get on with Dr Mawhinney," the campaigner said. They were also each ordered to pay pounds 5,000 prosecution costs. Judge Timothy Pontius said: "This was an accident waiting to happen.". The Conservatives' head of fund-raising has left the organisation, with the next general election only months away. The venue's owner, Earls Court Ltd was fined pounds 12,000, the chartered engineer, David McCallum, was fined pounds 18,000 and Jonathan Smith, a former director of the seating contractor, Arena Promotional Facilities, fined pounds 7,500 after all admitted breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

A judge at Knightsbridge Crown Court in London yesterday imposed fines totalling pounds 37,500 following the collapse of a seating stand during a Pink Floyd concert at Earls Court exhibition centre, in which 40 people were injured. About 14,000 fans were at the concert in October 1994, when the stand, holding more than 1,000, collapsed as the show began. A spokesman said frauds worth up to pounds 5,000 per day are being carried out in this way The cards are used for telephone and mail order services, and for low-value store purchases which are below the level where a shop would seek authorisation of the holder's credit limit.. The proliferation of supermarket "loyalty cards" has given young criminals extra chances to make fake credit cards, West Midlands police said yesterday.