Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many care leavers were accepted onto undergraduate courses at higher education institutions in each of the last three years for which data are available, broken down by institution.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Data on applications, offers, and acceptances for care leavers by institution is not held by the department. This information may be available from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many care leavers were made offers to attend a higher education institution in each of the last three years for which data are available, broken down by individual institution.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Data on applications, offers, and acceptances for care leavers by institution is not held by the department. This information may be available from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many care leavers made applications to higher education institutions in each of the last three years for which data are available, broken down by individual institution.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Data on applications, offers, and acceptances for care leavers by institution is not held by the department. This information may be available from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) looked-after children, and (2) care leavers, went on to Key Stage 5 in (a) the latest year for which figures are available, and (b) the three preceding years.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold information on the numbers of all care leavers who went on to key stage 5. The department does hold and publish information on the activities of care leavers aged 17 to 21 who had been looked after by local authorities in England. This includes information on care leavers in education, but not specifically at key stage 5. The latest statistics are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/fast-track/1db542fc-b38b-4dd6-c132-08daa787e284.
The department also publishes information on pupils who were at the end of key stage 4 in 2018/19 and reports on their destinations in the 2019/20 academic year. The figures show in 2019/20, 5,010 looked after children were in a sustained education destination in the year following the end of key stage 4. Of these, 2,910 were in further education, 860 were in a school sixth form or sixth form college and 1,240 were in some other form of education. They may not necessarily be studying key stage 5 learning aims. This data can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/271af2fd-b022-402a-076f-08db29e96c41.
The latest information on attainment for looked after children is published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/outcomes-for-children-in-need-including-children-looked-after-by-local-authorities-in-england.
Information on pupils who were at the end of key stage 4 in 2019/20 and their destinations in the 2020/21 academic year was published on 30 March 2023 on the GOV.UK website.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the income gap between workers with special educational needs and disabilities and those without.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the noble Baroness’ Parliamentary Question of 28 February is attached.
The Baroness Eaton DBE BL
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
2 March 2023
Dear Lady Eaton,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what assessment has been made of the income gap between workers with special educational needs and disabilities and those without (HL5984).
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not currently hold estimates of the total income gap specifically. However, the ONS has published relevant analysis on the average earnings of disabled and non-disabled employees in the UK.
The publication Disability pay gaps in the UK: 2021 [1] provides the latest available information from the Annual Population Survey (APS) comparing earnings of disabled and non-disabled employees up to 2021.
In 2021, disabled employees earnt an average (median) of £12.10 per hour and non-disabled employees £14.03 per hour, a difference of 13.8%. This difference has widened slightly since 2014 when disabled employees earnt an average 11.7% less than non-disabled employees.
This publication looks at the impact of some of the factors that may affect disabled employees pay such as their impairment type or severity. For example, in 2021 disabled employees with autism as their main impairment had a wider difference in average pay than disabled people with other types of main impairment, having an average pay 33.5% less than non-disabled employees. Disabled employees who were limited a lot in their day-to-day activities had a wider difference in average pay to non-disabled employees (19.9% less) than disabled employees whose day-to-day activities were limited a little (12.1% less).
This publication also shows that after controlling for the differences in personal characteristics such as age, where they live and occupation type, differences in average pay between disabled and non-disabled employees were narrower but persisted.
The largest narrowing was seen for disabled employees with autism as their main impairment, where the difference in average pay to non-disabled employees was estimated to be 9.9% after accounting for differences in personal and job characteristics between disabled and nondisabled employees, compared with 33.5% before doing so.
For further context, other ONS data, such as that published within Outcomes for disabled people in the UK: 20212 , provides the latest available information on outcomes for disabled people across a range of areas of life including employment, education, social participation, housing, well-being, loneliness and crime. We will of course take your question into account as we continue to produce analysis relevant to the experiences of disabled people, working to ensure that it is inclusive and highlights the experiences of different groups.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sir Ian Diamond
[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/disability/articles/disability paygapsintheuk/2021
[2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/disability/articles/outcome sfordisabledpeopleintheuk/2021
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that teacher training includes, as standard, specific training on teaching young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Teachers’ Standards set clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). All trainees who achieve Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) must demonstrate that they can adapt teaching to respond to the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND.
Initial teacher training (ITT) courses must be designed so that teacher trainees can demonstrate that they meet all the Teachers' Standards at the appropriate level, including the requirement in Standard 5, that all teachers must have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils.
To support all teachers to meet these standards, the Department has implemented high quality teacher training reforms which begin with ITT and continues into early career teaching, through to the reformed suite of leadership and specialist national professional qualifications (NPQ), ensuring that teachers have the skills to support all pupils to succeed, including those with SEND.
Since 2020 the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework (CCF) has included content on adapting teaching to the strengths and needs of all pupils, and since delivery started from 2021, the Early Career Framework has built on that learning for Early Career Teachers. These reforms support our ambition that all new teachers starting in the profession learn how to meet the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND.
On 2 March 2023, we published the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan in response to the Green Paper published in March last year. This outlines the department's mission for the SEND and AP system to fulfil children’s potential, build parents’ trust and provide financial sustainability. We are also building a confident expert workforce, training up to 5,000 new early years Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCos). Furthermore, an over 50% increase in high needs funding to over £10 billion by 2023-24, compared to £6.1 billion in 2018-19, will help children and young people with SEND in both special schools and mainstream schools receive the right support.
As part of that plan, the department will be conducting a review of the ITT Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework together this year, which will consider further opportunities to improve how the frameworks support new teachers to meet the needs of pupils with SEND.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase the public health grant in (1) 2023–24, and (2) 2024–25, in line with inflation as announced in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We will announce 2023/24 Public Health Grant allocations to local authorities shortly.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will inform local authorities of their provisional public health grant budgets for 2023–24.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We will announce 2023/24 Public Health Grant allocations to local authorities shortly.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of the level of funding of the public health grant to local authorities.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
At the Spending Review 2021, we considered the need for local authority public health funding and confirmed that the public health grant to local authorities would increase over the settlement period. In 2022/23, the Grant increased by 2.81% to £3.417 billion. This is in addition to targeted investment through local Government in Start for Life support and drug and alcohol treatment services.
We will announce 2023/24 Public Health Grant allocations to local authorities shortly and in doing so will consider the impact of changes to pay and inflation trends and forecasts since the Spending Review.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the difference in economic productivity between young people with special educational needs and disabilities and those without.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not have an overall assessment of economic activity for those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and those without. We do have multiple sources of data on the activity of young people of all backgrounds.
The average median annualised earnings for learners who completed a further education course in the 2019/20 academic year and were recorded as having a learning difficulty or disability was £18,140 in the first full tax year after completion. This is slightly below the average for learners with no learning difficulty which is £20,620.
The department knows that not in education, employment or training (NEET) rates are higher for those with a disability. Recent estimates from the Office for National Statistics show that disabled 16 to 24 years olds are approximately three times more likely to be NEET compared to non-disabled 16 to 24 year olds in the UK.
The department acknowledges that this is not good enough, which is why on 2 March 2023 we published the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement plan in response to the green paper published in March 2022. This outlines the government’s mission for the SEND and AP system to fulfil children’s potential, build parental trust and provide financial sustainability. This can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1139561/SEND_and_alternative_provision_improvement_plan.pdf.