Universities: Financial Sustainability

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the financial sustainability of universities in England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government recognise that the sector’s financial position has become increasingly challenging. The financial health report from the Office for Students makes clear that the business models for a significant number of providers must change to ensure that they are financially sustainable. Indeed, all providers must continue to adapt to uncertainties and financial risks. Ultimately, providers are independent from government and, as such, it is for them to decide how they manage their finances.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. As she says, the universities are independent, but the Government set the framework within which they operate—freezing student fees for seven years and controlling student visas. Government has an overall responsibility to make sure that students get a good-quality education at universities and that they remain competitive internationally. What is my noble friend’s response to the rather worrying report from the Office for Students last week, which basically said that we need to review the business and funding model of universities if they are to continue to maintain their quality?

Expansion of Free Childcare

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The figure of 40,000 is the increase in the workforce that we need to achieve by September 2025. That is exactly why we are having a phased introduction to this policy. Even before we increased the rates for providers last year, there was almost a 13,000 increase in the workforce, and we have a number of initiatives to build on that.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the increase in free childcare hours, but is my noble friend the Minister aware that some parents of children with special educational needs are finding it difficult to find a placement? Is she satisfied that the extra allowance attached to those children is sufficient to encourage nurseries to take them on?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising that, because this can be an incredibly valuable support for children with special educational needs in their early years. We have increased the hourly funding rates and the dedicated additional SEND funding, but the department is doing a review of the SEND inclusion fund, to understand better how it is being used and whether we can improve on it.

Children and Young People: Local Authority Care

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, no one is better qualified to lead a debate on children in care than the noble Lord, Lord Laming, whom I first met 40 years ago when I was a junior Minister and he was already a colossus in the world of local authority social services. Since then, he has been instrumental in developing national policy on childcare and holding Governments to account.

I begin with a word of tribute to the statutory workforce and the voluntary workforce looking after children. As we have heard, they operate in very challenging circumstances and quite often they enable a child who has had a very difficult start in life to have a happy outcome. I want to focus my remarks on the role that adoption, fostering and kinship care can play in meeting the challenges we have been talking about. I declare a minor interest in that some time ago my wife and I did some respite fostering. I am grateful to Carol Homden of Coram for bringing me up to date.

I welcome some of the initiatives that this Government have introduced, such as the extra pupil premium, the adoption support fund and, recently, the kinship care strategy. In passing, I note that it shows what a Minister, Edward Timpson, can achieve if left in the same place for five years, ably supported by my noble friend on the Front Bench. But the country faces a demographic challenge. As we have heard, the numbers of children coming into care continue to grow and, within that population, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, there are more complex problems because the children who come into care are older.

On the supply side, the people who traditionally fostered and adopted are ageing, and they are not being replaced. The number of children in care who have been adopted has fallen from 3,590 in 2019 to 2,960 last year, and between 2015 and 2022 more fostering households deregistered than were replaced. The traditional families who adopted and fostered are increasingly having to look after elderly parents, and quite a few have grown-up children still living in their home because they have been unable to move on. This trend is reflected in the latest Ofsted figures, which reveal that in the year ending March last year there were 125,000 initial inquiries from potential foster carers, a drop of 9% on the previous year. This was confirmed by Ofsted, which said:

“As the number of children in care continues to grow, matching them with the right carers becomes increasingly difficult. This makes it more likely that very vulnerable children will face placement breakdowns and further disruption to their lives”.


A recent fall of 11% in local authority foster care households has meant, as we have heard, that councils are increasingly turning to expensive agencies, putting further pressure on their budgets. At the same time, they are losing the experience of the foster parents leaving the market. Part 1 of the Children and Families Act was meant to

“speed up the adoption process and enable more children to be placed in stable, loving homes with less delay and disruption”.

This was a worthy ambition, not least since adoption is the most stable form of placement, but adoption has fallen. We see the consequences of not getting this right. Some 25% of the prison population are former care leavers and 25% of those sleeping rough have been in care. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Wood, and others, children in care are moved too often, further away from home and away from their siblings.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Laming, that as a country we can do better. For example, we saw the response to the Homes for Ukraine campaign when a further crisis confronted this country. We need to encourage more people to adopt, to foster and to enter kinship care. That means looking at the low conversion rate of inquiries to acceptance; only 6% of the initial 125,000 foster care inquiries resulted in successful applications to become a carer. The journey needs to be better advertised, more user friendly and quicker.

We also need to look at the financial offer to the groups I have mentioned, as we heard from the right reverend Prelate, financed by savings on expensive residential care. Should there be such a black and white distinction between adoption and fostering, which discourages many from moving from fostering to adoption? Can we make better use of existing foster parents to recruit new ones? Can we broaden and diversify the fostering population? Crucially, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Meston, can we resource children’s services so that they can recruit and retain qualified staff to supervise the whole process? I hope this debate can build on what has been done and lead to better outcomes for children.

Childcare

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I addressed some of the noble Lord’s points in my earlier Answer, but he is of course right that the number of childminders declined by 10% last year. However, he will be aware that childminders typically have much smaller numbers of children—hence my remarks about the additional number of places, which rose last year. The Government’s additional actions are to increase the hourly rates paid to local authorities, which are increasing significantly, to £11.22 on average for children under two, but also with increases for other age groups.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this generous entitlement of free childcare, but is my noble friend aware of reports of children with special educational needs being turned away by early years providers? Those children need the support more than any other children. So what steps can my noble friend take to ensure that they get the support they need?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. I too have seen those reports, although our understanding in the department is that the vast majority of providers behave extremely responsibly and provide places for children with special educational needs and disabilities. But, if my noble friend or anyone in the House has examples of where this is not the case, we would be very grateful to hear those. We are also increasing the rate of funding for the disability access fund, and the early years national funding formula contains an element that addresses the additional costs of working with children with special educational needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I could not agree more, but I stress, again, that the vast majority of local authorities have informed their providers and we are working closely with the remaining ones to urge them to do so as quickly as possible.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, does this exchange not underline the need to increase capacity in the early years market? What steps is my noble friend taking to launch a recruitment campaign to encourage people to enter this sector?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We will shortly be launching a new national campaign that will be broadcast across a number of different channels to try to boost interest in the early years sector. Having been in a nursery in a school this morning, I can say that it certainly looked to me like the most attractive job.

Coram’s Charter for Children

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We understand that local authorities are under significant financial pressure. That is why we have committed to major reform in relation to children’s social care, focusing increasingly on earlier intervention. Over the last three spending reviews, local government has seen real increases in its core spending power, with a major cash injection of £5.1 billion last year, of which £3.1 billion was provided through a central government grant.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Coram charter calls for the reform of childcare, enabling all children to have access to high-quality early years provision. I very much welcome the announcement last year of free provision for two year-olds from 1 April, with further extension later on. However, in the year that has just ended, there were 216 nursery closures in England, compared with 144 in the previous year. What steps are the Government taking to encourage early years providers to increase capacity to meet this new demand?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. Of course, he is right about the number of closures, but overall, the workforce has increased by 4% in the last year. My noble friend asks about action now: we have announced an increase in the hourly rates paid to providers, to £5.88 for three to four year-olds, and up to £11.22 for the under twos. We are allowing parents to register their interest early in the new free childcare provision, allowing nurseries to expand. We have increased the flexibility for childminders to deliver their services outside the home.

Schools: Absenteeism

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce absenteeism in schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the latest data show improvements in attendance across all phases, with 350,000 fewer pupils being permanently absent in spring 2023 compared with summer 2022. Our new expectations ask schools to appoint a senior attendance champion and meet termly with local authorities to agree individual plans for at-risk children, as well as using our attendance data to identify where to intervene early. We have launched the attendance action alliance for system leaders and have expanded attendance hubs and mentoring support.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend’s voice has recovered.

Last autumn, two years after the lockdown ended, a quarter of children were persistently absent from school—double the rate before lockdown. That means that 2 million children are persistently absent from school, falling behind on education, missing out on social education with their friends and running the risk of falling prey to drugs and criminal gangs. There is something seriously wrong here. What research has my noble friend’s department done to find out the reasons for this worrying increase, which shows little signs of diminishing?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As ever, my noble friend asks a very important question. If we look at the reasons underpinning persistent absence, the majority of persistent absence is authorised, with higher than normal levels of sickness particularly in the last autumn term. We are also aware of suggestions that parental attitudes towards sickness have changed, with parents keeping children home when previously they might have sent them into school and, of course, high levels of reported anxiety. However, we are also actively exploring the matter of those children who perhaps missed so much education during the pandemic that their level of reading, for example, is not sufficient to engage properly with the curriculum. That is also something that we are keen to address as quickly as possible.

Childcare Reform Package

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Unlike the noble Baroness, this Government do not feel that private profit is inherently evil. We cannot live in a world where, on the one hand, we say that the sector is underfunded so we give it enough money and, on the other, we are critical because we are worried that people operating in it, who might be small childminders running their own businesses from home, are able to move off benefits and live independently, as the noble Baroness suggested. I think we absolutely want to live in a country where we give local small entrepreneurs—which many people are who run nurseries and offer childminding services—the ability to pay their staff properly, make a decent return and provide an excellent service for children.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I very much welcome this Statement, which I see as rebalancing investment in education away from further and higher education and into early years—which is the best investment for both the child and society as a whole. Has my noble friend made any estimate of the number of people who will be able to return to work as a result of this welcome reform and what benefits the Treasury will recoup from that to offset some of the costs that she referred to?

Further to the questions asked by my noble friend Lady Bottomley and the right reverend Prelate on skills, does the Minister recognise the tension between on the one hand keeping costs down, both for families and for the taxpayer, and on the other hand the need to reward childminders appropriately, to attract more people into the workforce, to have a career structure and to ensure that people with appropriate qualifications are in early years so that children get the full benefit of the investment?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As ever, my noble friend speaks with great wisdom. The two parts of his question are linked. He is absolutely right that we cannot in any way compromise on quality, but we also need, as always, to ensure value for money for the taxpayer. One of the things that makes this policy affordable is the estimates from the Office for Budget Responsibility about the additional people joining the workforce as a result of this offer. The OBR has estimated that 65,000 people will go into the workforce as a result of this and a further 1.5 million will increase their hours by a small amount, which, aggregated, equates to a further 65,000 people. That is a really important boost to the country’s workforce, at a time when we need it very much. On how we ensure that we keep quality but also assure value for money, in addition to some of the issues around qualifications—I mentioned maths and whether that is needed—and giving additional routes into the sector, we are also changing the ratios of staff to children to mirror those in Scotland, so that that allows more flexibility, more capacity and better value for money.

SEND and Alternative Provision

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In relation to funding, I do not fully recognise the picture that the noble Baroness paints. Revenue funding in this area is up 50% since 2019, and we have committed £2.6 billion in high-needs capital funding to build, as I have already mentioned, 92 new special schools that are being delivered, with 49 in the pipeline and 33 on their way.

For children with physical disabilities at a high level, the aspiration is absolutely clear—we need to get the right place for every child, including those children. Therefore, if it is possible, we will include those children in the mainstream, as that clearly is the aspiration and direction of our work. I shall need to revert to the noble Baroness, as she has raised this issue with me before and my memory fails me on the current status of her final point.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, like others I welcome the provisions in the Statement, which will provide a better deal for parents and children with special needs, and I welcome the interaction between Ministers and noble Lords during the consultation. On workforce training, does my noble friend accept that the new NPQ will need significant adjustment, if it is going to meet the needs of the SENCOs envisaged in the Statement? The current NASENCO course that it replaces is for 600 hours. Does my noble friend agree that the strength of those courses needs to be carried through into the proposed NPQ?

I welcome the national standard as it will remove the postcode lottery. Can my noble friend assure me that the Treasury will have nothing to do with those national standards as a means of controlling costs, that costs will be based on the needs of children and that there will be the resources behind them to provide the finances for the EHCPs?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In relation to my noble friend’s first question, of course the new NPQ will definitely learn from the NASENCO qualification, but its focus, to put it in simple terms, will be very practical and on the classroom. It tries to address the practical requirements of teachers in the classroom, and it will have less of the academic and research focus that has traditionally been associated with the NASENCO.

In relation to not letting the Treasury anywhere near that, clearly, I would have to reserve judgment—but I hear the spirit of my noble friend’s question. The important thing is that the standards are being developed in collaboration with families, local authorities, health providers and schools. There are tensions pulling in different directions, but there is a shared aspiration for the earliest possible intervention, and the earlier that we can intervene the less likely it is that many children will need to go into specialist provision and need to have an EHCP. Therefore, absolutely front and centre, the most important thing is that that is the right outcome for that child, but the secondary helpful benefit is that it then frees up funding, as my noble friend suggests, for those children who need an EHCP.

Children and Young People in Care: Accommodation

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question, and echo his sentiment, and the sentiment of the House, in relation to the two recent cases to which I think he was referring.

In relation to the CMA report, the department is extremely grateful to the CMA, which is addressing fundamental and important issues. We believe that the steps that we have announced this week will make an important difference in securing the safety of 16 and 17 year-olds in particular. The investment that we are making in open and secure children’s homes will also help to boost supply—but we are waiting for the full report to give our official response.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will know that this year a record number of unaccompanied minors have arrived in this country seeking asylum, and many have been placed in hotels, with minimal supervision, making them vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking. What arrangements are the Government making to make sure that these vulnerable children get the support that they need?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Earlier this week, the national transfer scheme for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, to whom my noble friend refers, was made mandatory for local authorities. As a result of that change, the majority of local authorities will be required to accept transfers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children into their care. We believe that this will provide those very vulnerable children with the care and support that my noble friend rightly says they need.

Disabled Students’ Allowance Scheme

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be delighted to share that with colleagues in other departments.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I welcome the improvements to which my noble friend has just referred but can she say something about the totality of resources available to disabled students so that all those who are entitled to this equipment have access to it?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware that changes have been made to how the allowance works. There will be a single annual allowance of £25,000, which will replace four separate allowances. Our aim is that it will be simpler and more flexible. When we did the equality impact assessment we found that, over three years, four students out of about 70,000 would be disadvantaged by this but that visually and hearing-impaired students in particular would have much flexibility about how they used the resource available to them.