Lincolnshire and some London boroughs such as Bexley, Kingston-upon-Thames and Redbridge. There have been various (so far unsuccessful) attempts by campaigners to abolish all remaining grammar schools. The remaining grammar schools are now thus still selective, typically taking the top 10-25% of those from the local catchment area. Some of the still-existing grammar schools in the United Kingdom can trace their history back to earlier than the sixteenth century. Labour expanded a policy started by the Conservatives of creating specialist schools via the specialist schools programme. This new type of secondary school teaches the National Curriculum subjects plus a few specialist branches of knowledge (e.g. business studies) not found in most other schools. These schools are allowed to select 10% of their pupils. Numbers: In 1997 there were 196 of these schools. In August 2002 there were 1000. By 2006 the plan was to have 2000, and the goal was to make all secondary schools specialist eventually. The Beacon Schools programme was established in England in 1998. Its aim was to identify high performing schools, in order to help them form partnerships with each other and to provide examples of effective practice for other schools. The programme was replaced in August 2005 with more broadly based programmes; the Leading Edge Partnership programme (for secondary schools) and Primary Strategy Learning Networks (PSLNs) (at the primary level). A new grade of Advanced Skills Teacher was created, with the intention that highly skilled teachers would be paid more if they accepted new posts with outreach duties beyond their own schools. City Academies were introduced. These are new schools, built on the site of, or taking over from existing failing schools. A city academy is an independent school within the state system. It is outside the control of the local education authority and set up with substantial funding from interested third parties, which might be businesses, charities or private individuals. Education Action Zones were introduced, which are deprived areas run by an action forum of people within that area with the intention of making that area's schools better. Vocational qualifications were renamed/restructured as follows: GNVQs became Vocational GCSEs and AVCEs. NVQs scope expanded so that a degree-equivalent NVQ was possible. The New Deal was introduced, which made advisors available to long-term unemployed (in the UK this is defined as being unemployed for more than 6 months) to give help and money to those who