Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what level of accountability local authorities have to His Majesty's Government to ensure that they are meeting the expectation of partnering with the voluntary, community and faith sector in implementing family hubs.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
I refer The Lord Bishop of Durham, to the answer of 17 November 2023 to Question HL27. Guidance to local authorities participating in the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme sets an expectation that those local authorities partner with voluntary and faith organisations, as part of their family hub model. All local authorities which are part of the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme have the support of a Regional Delivery Lead and a Regional Delivery Expert Advisor to work with them on this transformation. Local authorities report on their progress against the service expectations, including those relating to voluntary, community and faith groups, through regular meetings between local authorities and their Regional Delivery Leads as part of our assurance process.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to allocate additional funding in the period 2025–30 to secondary and post-16 education providers to address the lag before the new National Funding Formula takes effect.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
As confirmed in the Implementing the Direct National Funding Formula (NFF) government consultation response, published in April 2023, the department remains committed to introducing a ‘direct’ NFF in which individual schools’ budgets are calculated by reference to the national formula, rather than via 150 local formulae. This will require a new legislative framework and the government plans to bring the necessary legislation forward in a future parliamentary session. The government consultation response can be accessed at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1153128/_Implementing_the_direct_national_funding_formula_government_consultation_response.pdf.
Under the NFF, as it operates now, schools are funded on the basis of their pupil numbers in the previous October census. This is known as a ‘lagged’ funding system and operates in this way to give schools more certainty over funding levels to aid their planning. It is particularly important in giving schools that see year on year reductions in their pupil numbers time to reorganise their staffing and costs before seeing the funding impact. Where schools are experiencing significant growth in pupil numbers, local authorities can use the growth funding they are allocated to support schools to manage the increase in pupil numbers before the lagged funding system has caught up.
The direct NFF, once introduced, will continue to base funding for schools on the previous October census. As such, there will be no change in the operation of this aspect of the funding system.
The NFF is not used for post-16 funding. The 16-19 funding formula also uses lagged student numbers as a basis for funding allocations. Subject to affordability, additional funding is made available to institutions delivering 16-19 education (including up to 24 for those with high needs), to support them with additional costs if they have higher than expected student recruitment. Each year the department reviews the early data from institutions and award in year growth payments. For the 2023/24 academic year, the department is publishing the rules for calculating in year growth awards early, providing a guarantee that growth will be funded based on departmental rules, giving certainty to providers to aid with their financial planning.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are offering to local authorities to help them partner with (1) voluntary, and (2) faith, organisations in the implementation of Family Hubs.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department recognises the importance of both voluntary organisations and faith group partners to the family hub model. Both have a vital role in supporting families to improve the reach and impact of the family hub offer, particularly for those seldom heard parents and families. The department has set the expectation in its family hubs guidance that local authorities partner with voluntary and faith organisations as part of their family hub model. Family hubs bring together resources, expertise, and assets to provide an integrated offer to support families and respond to the needs of the community. The family hubs guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/family-hubs-and-start-for-life-programme-local-authority-guide.
All local authorities who are part of the Family Hubs Start for Life programme have the support of a Regional Delivery Lead and a Regional Delivery Expert Advisor to work with them on the transformation of family support services to family hubs.
All local authorities have received funding to allow their family support services to transition to the family hub model. This could include the co-location of services for families in family hubs, making it easier for families to access services. Family hubs should also connect families to the relevant voluntary and faith sector support provided in their communities. In the developed family hub model, there should be a strategy to grow and support voluntary and faith sector organisations to work towards shared outcomes in the family hub network.
The department’s delivery partner, the National Centre for Family Hubs, is working with all local authorities across England, spreading best practice through conferences, events, online modules and case studies. The National Centre will publish a toolkit module, as well as offering coaching and/or one to one support on how to engage with and make high quality partnerships with voluntary and faith organisations. The department welcomes the continued participation and contribution of faith sector organisations to these channels.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the provision of specialist foster care for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children across the UK.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department recognise that local authorities across the country want to recruit more foster carers to provide loving homes for the children in their care, including for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC). The government is investing over £27 million in this parliament in a fostering recruitment and retention programme that will support local authorities to ensure that there are more foster carers available for the children who need them, including UASC. This will include a recruitment support hub which will work alongside a regional recruitment campaign to drive interest and enquiries in fostering. This may include specialist support and targeted campaigns to recruit specialist foster carers who are able to care for UASC. The department will work with regions to look at their local data to inform where efforts need to be targeted. This could include sibling groups, teenagers and UASC.
UASC are transferred to the care of local authorities through the National Transfer Scheme, ensuring their care is distributed fairly across the UK. Local authorities have a duty to accommodate all UASC who arrive in their area and these children are entitled to the same protections and support as any other looked-after child, which includes ensuring decisions about their care and accommodation, including where UASC are placed in foster care, are made with the best interests of each individual child.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, beyond the school gates, to provide support to children who have interacted with the children’s social care system.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Our analysis for reporting year ending March 2022 for children in social care shows:
After accounting for a wide range of factors such as rates of special educational need in these cohorts, children who have interacted with the social care system were around 25-50% less likely to achieve grades 5-9 in GCSE English and Maths, compared to pupils who were not in social care.
The government has put in place a number of measures to support the educational attainment of looked-after children. Every local authority in England must appoint a Virtual School Head, who has a statutory duty to promote the educational achievement of all children in their care, wherever they live or are educated. Looked-after children attract Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,530 per child up to age 16, which is managed by the Virtual School Head, working with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in their individual Personal Education Plans.
‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ sets out our strategy to reform the children’s social care system, including improving the education, employment, and training outcomes of children in care and care leavers. The department will introduce a gold standard accreditation scheme for further and higher education institutions supporting care leavers, consult on plans to expand the Virtual School Head role to include children in care and care leavers up to age 25, and roll out a further £24 million in Pupil Premium Plus style funding between 2023 and 2025 to bolster educational support available to children in care and care leavers in 16-19 education.
The Children in Need Review, which concluded in June 2019, identified for the first time that 1.6 million children needed a social worker between 2012 and 2018, and that these children have worse educational outcomes at every stage, with children who need a social worker in their GCSE year being 50% as likely to achieve a strong pass in English and Maths as their peers.
To address this, in June 2021 the department extended Virtual School Head duties to include all children with a social worker, giving them a strategic leadership role to champion the educational attendance, attainment, and progress of children with a social worker. This means that they have a lead role in levelling up educational outcomes for children with a social worker and narrowing the attainment gap, so every child has the opportunity to reach their potential.
We recently announced over £1 billion for programmes to improve early help services from birth to adulthood, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple-disadvantage through the Supporting Families programme and Holiday Activities and Food programme. Investing in support for families helps children to have happy, healthy childhoods. It can stop issues escalating and help them to achieve better outcomes. The Supporting Families Programme has supported over half a million families, to make sustained improvements to their lives, and is projected to help a further 300,000.
In ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, we outlined our plans to build on the strengths of current early help services, through the creation of family help. These reforms are central to ensuring children growing up with loving relationships and stability. The department is creating a service which meets the whole needs of a family and works to their strengths, delivered by multi-disciplinary teams working collaboratively with their local partners. Through the £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme, we will test implementation in up to 12 local areas over two years and help assess requirements to achieve meaningful change system-wide.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the educational attainment and GCSE results of children who interact with the children’s social care system.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Our analysis for reporting year ending March 2022 for children in social care shows:
After accounting for a wide range of factors such as rates of special educational need in these cohorts, children who have interacted with the social care system were around 25-50% less likely to achieve grades 5-9 in GCSE English and Maths, compared to pupils who were not in social care.
The government has put in place a number of measures to support the educational attainment of looked-after children. Every local authority in England must appoint a Virtual School Head, who has a statutory duty to promote the educational achievement of all children in their care, wherever they live or are educated. Looked-after children attract Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,530 per child up to age 16, which is managed by the Virtual School Head, working with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in their individual Personal Education Plans.
‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ sets out our strategy to reform the children’s social care system, including improving the education, employment, and training outcomes of children in care and care leavers. The department will introduce a gold standard accreditation scheme for further and higher education institutions supporting care leavers, consult on plans to expand the Virtual School Head role to include children in care and care leavers up to age 25, and roll out a further £24 million in Pupil Premium Plus style funding between 2023 and 2025 to bolster educational support available to children in care and care leavers in 16-19 education.
The Children in Need Review, which concluded in June 2019, identified for the first time that 1.6 million children needed a social worker between 2012 and 2018, and that these children have worse educational outcomes at every stage, with children who need a social worker in their GCSE year being 50% as likely to achieve a strong pass in English and Maths as their peers.
To address this, in June 2021 the department extended Virtual School Head duties to include all children with a social worker, giving them a strategic leadership role to champion the educational attendance, attainment, and progress of children with a social worker. This means that they have a lead role in levelling up educational outcomes for children with a social worker and narrowing the attainment gap, so every child has the opportunity to reach their potential.
We recently announced over £1 billion for programmes to improve early help services from birth to adulthood, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple-disadvantage through the Supporting Families programme and Holiday Activities and Food programme. Investing in support for families helps children to have happy, healthy childhoods. It can stop issues escalating and help them to achieve better outcomes. The Supporting Families Programme has supported over half a million families, to make sustained improvements to their lives, and is projected to help a further 300,000.
In ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, we outlined our plans to build on the strengths of current early help services, through the creation of family help. These reforms are central to ensuring children growing up with loving relationships and stability. The department is creating a service which meets the whole needs of a family and works to their strengths, delivered by multi-disciplinary teams working collaboratively with their local partners. Through the £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme, we will test implementation in up to 12 local areas over two years and help assess requirements to achieve meaningful change system-wide.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Action for Children’s report, The Educational Outcomes of Children Referred to Children’s Social Care: A Revolving Doors Report, published on 22 August, and data from the annual children in need census, what assessment they have made of the gap in educational attainment between children who have interacted with the children’s social care system, and their peers who have not.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Our analysis for reporting year ending March 2022 for children in social care shows:
After accounting for a wide range of factors such as rates of special educational need in these cohorts, children who have interacted with the social care system were around 25-50% less likely to achieve grades 5-9 in GCSE English and Maths, compared to pupils who were not in social care.
The government has put in place a number of measures to support the educational attainment of looked-after children. Every local authority in England must appoint a Virtual School Head, who has a statutory duty to promote the educational achievement of all children in their care, wherever they live or are educated. Looked-after children attract Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,530 per child up to age 16, which is managed by the Virtual School Head, working with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in their individual Personal Education Plans.
‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ sets out our strategy to reform the children’s social care system, including improving the education, employment, and training outcomes of children in care and care leavers. The department will introduce a gold standard accreditation scheme for further and higher education institutions supporting care leavers, consult on plans to expand the Virtual School Head role to include children in care and care leavers up to age 25, and roll out a further £24 million in Pupil Premium Plus style funding between 2023 and 2025 to bolster educational support available to children in care and care leavers in 16-19 education.
The Children in Need Review, which concluded in June 2019, identified for the first time that 1.6 million children needed a social worker between 2012 and 2018, and that these children have worse educational outcomes at every stage, with children who need a social worker in their GCSE year being 50% as likely to achieve a strong pass in English and Maths as their peers.
To address this, in June 2021 the department extended Virtual School Head duties to include all children with a social worker, giving them a strategic leadership role to champion the educational attendance, attainment, and progress of children with a social worker. This means that they have a lead role in levelling up educational outcomes for children with a social worker and narrowing the attainment gap, so every child has the opportunity to reach their potential.
We recently announced over £1 billion for programmes to improve early help services from birth to adulthood, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple-disadvantage through the Supporting Families programme and Holiday Activities and Food programme. Investing in support for families helps children to have happy, healthy childhoods. It can stop issues escalating and help them to achieve better outcomes. The Supporting Families Programme has supported over half a million families, to make sustained improvements to their lives, and is projected to help a further 300,000.
In ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, we outlined our plans to build on the strengths of current early help services, through the creation of family help. These reforms are central to ensuring children growing up with loving relationships and stability. The department is creating a service which meets the whole needs of a family and works to their strengths, delivered by multi-disciplinary teams working collaboratively with their local partners. Through the £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme, we will test implementation in up to 12 local areas over two years and help assess requirements to achieve meaningful change system-wide.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the analysis by the Child Poverty Action Group, published in June 2022, which found that there are currently 800,000 children in poverty in England that are not eligible for free school meals, what steps they are taking to ensure that all children in poverty are eating a healthy and substantial lunch every day.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The Autumn Statement 2022 announced £26 billion in cost of living support for 2023/24. This includes Cost of Living Payments for the most vulnerable. In 2023/24, households on eligible means-tested benefits will get up to a further £900 in Cost-of-Living Payments. A £300 payment will be made to pensioner households and individuals in receipt of eligible disability benefits will receive a £150 payment. Also included is the amended Energy Price Guarantee which will save the average UK household £500 in 2023-24 and raising the benefit cap by 10.1% in line with inflation.
For those who require extra support, the government is providing an additional £1 billion of funding, including Barnett impact, to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund in England in the next financial year. This is on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing total funding to £2.5 billion. In England this will be delivered through an extension to the Household Support Fund backed by £842 million, running from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, which local authorities use to help households with the cost of essentials. It will be for the devolved administrations to decide how to allocate their additional Barnett funding.
In addition to this, we are investing over £200 million a year in our Holiday Activities and Food programme. All local authorities in England are delivering this programme and last year we reached more than 600,000 children over the summer.
The government is also continuing support for breakfast clubs and will support up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas through our national school breakfasts programme. The programme, worth up to £24 million, means that thousands of children will be offered nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment, wellbeing and readiness for education throughout 2021/23.
In setting a threshold for Free School Meals, the department believes that the current level, which enables the most disadvantaged children to benefit from FSM while remaining affordable and deliverable for schools, is the right one. The department will continue to keep free school meal (FSM) eligibility under review, ensuring that these meals are supporting those who most need them.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to review the earnings threshold for those eligible for free school meals given the increased cost of living.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Since 2010, the number of children receiving a free meal at school has increased by more than two million. This is thanks to the introduction of universal infant free school meals, alongside protections put in place as benefit recipients move across to Universal Credit. Over a third of pupils in England now receive Free School Meals (FSM) in education, compared with one in six in 2010.
The department believes that the current eligibility threshold level, which enables children in low-income households to benefit from FSM, while remaining affordable and deliverable for schools, is the right one. The department does not have plans to change the current eligibility conditions for FSM, but we will continue to keep eligibility under review to ensure that these meals are supporting those who need them most. The department continues to monitor the consequences of the rising cost of living and is working with other government departments to provide support to disadvantaged families.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many children are in receipt of Universal Credit but are not eligible for free school meals.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Since 2010, the number of children receiving a free meal at school has increased by more than two million. This is thanks to the introduction of universal infant free school meals, alongside protections put in place as benefit recipients move across to Universal Credit. Over a third of pupils in England now receive Free School Meals (FSM) in education, compared with one in six in 2010.
The department believes that the current eligibility threshold level, which enables children in low-income households to benefit from FSM, while remaining affordable and deliverable for schools, is the right one. The department does not have plans to change the current eligibility conditions for FSM, but we will continue to keep eligibility under review to ensure that these meals are supporting those who need them most. The department continues to monitor the consequences of the rising cost of living and is working with other government departments to provide support to disadvantaged families.