Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to introduce a national system for monitoring vacancies on the boards of trustees of schools and colleges.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are no immediate plans for a national vacancy monitoring system, but colleges supply unfilled vacancy data for further education (FE) governors, which helps us to understand vacancy rates in FE colleges. The department closely monitors the statistics produced annually by the National Governance Association. We fund the Governor Recruitment Service to help with FE governor recruitment. The department also works with partners to support recruitment to boards, including sharing resources for recruitment through the effective governance resources produced in partnership with governance organisations. This information is available to view on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to continue the FE Governor Recruitment Service contract due to expire in March 2027; and what assessment they have made of the impact of uncertainty around the future of the contract on colleges and other further education stakeholders.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This government is committed to strong leadership and governance in further education colleges, and the department provides existing support for colleges, including via the further education governor recruitment service (GRS) and from the Further Education Commissioner and her team. The existing GRS contract has potential to run until March 2028, and the department will make decisions on future requirements in due course.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on 9 March (HC Deb col 81), what evidence they possess regarding the risks to young people which they say will require further regulation of home education.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Parents have the right to educate their children in elective home education and many do so effectively in their children’s best interests.
Home education is not in itself a risk, however evidence from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel highlights that school attendance is a protective factor for vulnerable children, highlighting the serious harm that has been experienced by some children withdrawn into home education. In addition, 96% of local authority respondents to the 2019 Children Not in School consultation believed Children Not in School registers were needed to support them to fulfil their education and safeguarding duties towards these children.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act introduces compulsory Children Not in School registers and requires parents of some children known to children's social care or with the highest needs to get permission from the local authority before withdrawing their children from school for home education.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to follow the government of Scotland in providing matched funding for incentivised learning of life skills for young people in care through the Share Foundation’s Stepladder PLUS programme.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We want to ensure that children leaving care have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training.
We recognise the importance of financial skills, such as that provided through the Stepladder Plus programme, in achieving this aim. The department currently supports the use of this programme through its contract, for the provision of Junior ISA savings accounts to children in care, with The Share Foundation. We do not have any plans to provide match funding at this time.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of swimming and water safety attainment results provided by schools as part of the physical educations and sport premium expenditure reporting return, and whether they will publish that data.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department is processing the information received through the Digital Expenditure Reporting Return and will publish a summary of quality assured data in the New Year.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the cost-effectiveness of supported lodgings compared with residential or semi-independent provision, and whether they will make dedicated funding available to expand supported lodgings capacity across local authorities.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Supported accommodation, including supported lodgings, is a newly regulated sector and, as such, evidence of cost effectiveness is also still developing.
To support local authorities with the supported accommodation reforms, £123 million of funding was distributed between 2023 to 2025 to local authorities to offset the increased costs associated with the impact of supported accommodation regulations. The New Burdens Grant has been rolled into the Local Government Funding Scheme to ensure continued funding for the supported accommodation sector.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that supported lodgings are fully integrated into the new Regional Care Cooperatives, and recognised as a core part of local sufficiency planning for older children in care and care leavers.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Regional Care Cooperatives will plan and commission all placements for looked-after children in the region, including placements for older children in care.
The Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations ensure that supported lodgings schemes are now registered and regulated by Ofsted, and must meet the supported accommodation standards to operate legally. This enables supported lodging to form part of local sufficiency planning for older children and care leavers.
Local authorities and Regional Care Cooperatives can therefore identify where registered provision exists and commission supported lodgings with the added level of quality assurance that regulation provides via registration and regular inspection.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether welfare benefits or tax credits, including disability benefits that a kinship carer receives for themselves or the child, will be impacted if they receive financial support through the Kinship Allowance Pilot.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The kinship allowance pilot will provide financial support to eligible kinship carers with a Special Guardianship Order or a ‘lives with’ Child Arrangement Order where the child would have otherwise been in care. These carers will receive a weekly non-means tested allowance paid at the same rate as the national minimum fostering allowance, if they reside in the pilot local authorities.
The requirements under chapter 2 of the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005 (2005 Regulations) will not apply to the arrangements made under this pilot. Special Guardians receiving financial support under 2005 Regulations are barred from receiving this pilot's allowance to avoid the risk of double public-funding. We believe this will have minimal effect on financial support arrangements under the Special Guardianship Regulations because this pilot is only being run in a select few local authorities and for a specific period of time, so some Special Guardians will continue to prefer receiving financial support under the 2005 Regulations.
Further details of the pilot, including how payments made through the pilot will interact with social security benefits, will be made available when the pilot goes live.
The pilot will be independently evaluated to find out how best to deliver consistent financial support for kinship families. Decisions about future national rollout will be informed by the findings of the evaluation.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether Chapter Two of the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005, and the provisions of the Special Guardianship statutory guidance, will apply to local authorities participating in the Kinship Allowance Pilot; and, if so how.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The kinship allowance pilot will provide financial support to eligible kinship carers with a Special Guardianship Order or a ‘lives with’ Child Arrangement Order where the child would have otherwise been in care. These carers will receive a weekly non-means tested allowance paid at the same rate as the national minimum fostering allowance, if they reside in the pilot local authorities.
The requirements under chapter 2 of the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005 (2005 Regulations) will not apply to the arrangements made under this pilot. Special Guardians receiving financial support under 2005 Regulations are barred from receiving this pilot's allowance to avoid the risk of double public-funding. We believe this will have minimal effect on financial support arrangements under the Special Guardianship Regulations because this pilot is only being run in a select few local authorities and for a specific period of time, so some Special Guardians will continue to prefer receiving financial support under the 2005 Regulations.
Further details of the pilot, including how payments made through the pilot will interact with social security benefits, will be made available when the pilot goes live.
The pilot will be independently evaluated to find out how best to deliver consistent financial support for kinship families. Decisions about future national rollout will be informed by the findings of the evaluation.
Asked by: Lord Hampton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they plan to improve consistency, fairness and transparency in the provision of special guardianship allowances concurrently with the Kinship Allowance Pilot.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The kinship allowance pilot will provide financial support to eligible kinship carers with a Special Guardianship Order or a ‘lives with’ Child Arrangement Order where the child would have otherwise been in care. These carers will receive a weekly non-means tested allowance paid at the same rate as the national minimum fostering allowance, if they reside in the pilot local authorities.
The requirements under chapter 2 of the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005 (2005 Regulations) will not apply to the arrangements made under this pilot. Special Guardians receiving financial support under 2005 Regulations are barred from receiving this pilot's allowance to avoid the risk of double public-funding. We believe this will have minimal effect on financial support arrangements under the Special Guardianship Regulations because this pilot is only being run in a select few local authorities and for a specific period of time, so some Special Guardians will continue to prefer receiving financial support under the 2005 Regulations.
Further details of the pilot, including how payments made through the pilot will interact with social security benefits, will be made available when the pilot goes live.
The pilot will be independently evaluated to find out how best to deliver consistent financial support for kinship families. Decisions about future national rollout will be informed by the findings of the evaluation.