Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by Adoption UK Cost of living crisis: impact on adoptive families and adopted people. Summary of survey data December 2022, published on 26 January, which found that 41 per cent of prospective adopters surveyed were considering adopting fewer children than previously as a result of the increased cost of living; and what assessment they have made on the potential impact this would have on the length of time children with a plan for adoption wait to be placed.
Answered by Baroness Barran
The government understands that many people, including adopters and adopted adults, are worried about the impact of rising prices. For this reason, the government is providing £37 billion of support this year, targeted at those who are most in need. The package will see millions of the most vulnerable households receive at least £1,200 of support in total this year to help with the cost of living, with all domestic electricity customers receiving at least £400 to help with their bills.
The department aims to ensure that children waiting to be found new adoptive families are placed with as little wait as possible. Tackling long waits for children who require new adoptive families is a key priority in the 2021 Adoption Strategy ‘Achieving excellence everywhere’. The department is funding Regional Adoption Agency (RRA) leaders to improve the recruitment of adopters, matching children with approved adopters and adoption support over the next three years. In the past year, RAAs have focused on those children who wait the longest and have seen a fall in the number of children with a court placement order waiting for 18 months, from 390 at March 2020 to 240 at September 2022.
Where necessary, the statutory framework covering adoption allows RRAs and local authorities to provide financial support to adoptive parents to support the placement of a child or the continuation of adoption arrangements.
Adult adoptees should be able to access the support that they need, particularly around their mental health needs. The department is publicly consulting on amendments to regulations to simplify arrangements for providers who support adopted adults that will increase the accessibility of support services. One of the proposed changes in the consultation is to remove the requirement that therapists be registered with Ofsted when providing counselling services to adopted adults. This change is recommended in Adoption UK’s ‘Cost of living crisis: impact on adoptive families and adopted people’ report.
The government is also improving NHS mental health support availability. The NHS Long Term Plan and mental health expansion plans will increase funding for mental health services, to target groups with severe mental illness and young people.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the increased cost of living on children’s social care budgets.
Answered by Baroness Barran
Children’s social care services are funded by the core spending power of local government. This is principally made up of council tax, retained business rates and central government grants. As agreed at the 2021 Spending Review, councils have access to £54.1 billion core spending power for their services in 2022/23. This is an increase of £3.7 billion on the 2021/22 financial year.
The government announced in the Autumn Statement that £1.3 billion in 2023/24 and £1.9 billion in 2024/25 will be distributed to local authorities through the Social Care Grant for adult and children’s social care. This is in addition to the funding agreed in the 2021 Spending Review.
We are working with the sector to understand the impact of inflation and will provide further details of the total funding available to local authorities in 2023/24 in the provisional local government finance settlement as soon as is possible this winter.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have (1) to designate senior political leadership for child protection and children’s social care, and (2) to appoint a Minister for Children who attends Cabinet.
Answered by Baroness Barran
Policy for children and families is a cross government matter. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, represents the interests of children and young people when attending Cabinet.
The department leads on the national policy for safeguarding and children’s social care. Following the report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse we are working closely with the Home Office to ensure that the child’s voice is reflected in all policy decisions, and that the child’s experience and wellbeing is consistently factored in to measures we take to improve child protection and safeguarding processes. We will be reviewing the Inquiry’s recommendations and will work closely with other government departments to respond in due course.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many meetings of the Children’s Social Care National Implementation Board have taken place; and what role, if any, the Board has played in formulating His Majesty's Government's response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.
Answered by Baroness Barran
Members of the National Implementation Board met for the first time in July 2022, for an ‘interim’ meeting. At this stage the department were yet to appoint members with lived experience of the children’s social care system. Following their appointment, in October 2022 the full board met with officials in the department for an informal update on progress. The first, full board meeting took place in November, chaired by my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing and with all members present. The most recent meeting was held on 13 December 2022.
The role of the board is to support, advise, and hold to account the government on its implementation of reforms to the children’s social care system. The board has reviewed and provided feedback on our strategic objectives, advising on how best to create the conditions for successful reform. They have also advised and challenged the department on our delivery plans, to help ensure we are taking the right actions to secure the outcomes we want to see for children and families in the short, medium, and long term.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions the Department for Education has had with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about providing additional support to care-experienced young people.
Answered by Baroness Barran
Preventing homelessness and rough sleeping for care leavers is a priority of this government. The Department for Education and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) work closely to develop the government approach. Since 2018, the government has provided £8.2 million to local authorities to provide extra support to care leavers at highest risk of rough sleeping in contribution to the Cross Government Rough Sleeping Strategy.
We have been working closely with DLUHC on the specific recommendations around care leaver homelessness within the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and will provide further detail on our joint plans within the Implementation Strategy which is due to be published in early 2023.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government who in law will be the publisher of Oak National Academy publications when it becomes a non-departmental public body.
Answered by Baroness Barran
Building on its success in the COVID-19 pandemic, Oak National Academy was established as an arm’s length body on 1 September 2022, working independently of government and collaboratively with the sector. It works with teachers across the country, giving them and their pupils access to high-quality digital curriculum resources which are free, optional, and adaptable.
As an arm’s length body, Oak National Academy will procure resources, own the intellectual property of those resources and make them available online.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they last conducted a review on the operation of section 571 of the Education Act 1996.
Answered by Baroness Barran
The department has not conducted or published a formal review of Section 571 of the Education Act 1996.
The department endeavours to provide guidance to the sector, where necessary, in a timely and efficient manner. A collection of the department’s statutory guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statutory-guidance-schools.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many 18 to 24 year olds started a course at (1) Level 4, and (2) Level 5, in (a) 2019, and (b) 2022.
Answered by Baroness Barran
The department publishes an overview of participation and achievements in learning at National Qualifications Framework (NQF) levels 4 to 8 at further education (FE) providers and higher education (HE) providers in its annual statistical release ‘Higher-Level Learners in England’. The latest release for the 2020/21 academic year can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/higher-level-learners-in-england/2020-21#dataBlock-a5a1ee87-ec4e-44ee-776a-08da3e21c130-tables. The statistical release includes counts of entrants across different types of higher-level learning, including apprenticeships and Office for Students (OfS) recognised HE.
The specific age range requested is not available in the statistical release. The tables below show the number of entrants to NQF level 4 and 5 learning who were aged 18 to 24 in the academic years 2019/20 and 2020/21. (Student age is taken as the age as at 31 August of the reporting period). The statistics are disaggregated by the type of higher-level learning undertaken and figures are rounded to the nearest 5, in line with Higher Education Statistics Agency rounding conventions.
English-domiciled higher-level entrants to NQF level 4 learning aged 18 to 24 at English providers in 2019/20 and 2020/21
Type of Study | 2019/20 | 2020/21 |
OfS Recognised HE | 9,125 | 8,355 |
Apprenticeship | 10,435 | 10,780 |
Institutional credit in Higher Education Providers | 1,250 | 1,340 |
Other Higher Level | 3,705 | 3,285 |
Level 4 total | 24,520 | 23,765 |
English-domiciled higher-level entrants to NQF level 5 learning aged 18 to 24 at English providers in 2019/20 and 2020/21
Type of Study | 2019/20 | 2020/21 |
OfS Recognised HE | 16,450 | 17,730 |
Apprenticeship | 3,070 | 2,735 |
Institutional credit in Higher Education Providers | 230 | 265 |
Other Higher Level | 895 | 760 |
Level 5 total | 20,645 | 21,485 |
Statistics for the academic year 2021/22 will be published in Spring 2023 and statistics for 2022/23 will be published in Spring 2024.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will issue their response to the Independent Review of Children's Social Care, published in May.
Answered by Baroness Barran
The department is working up an ambitious and detailed implementation strategy in response to the Independent Review of Children's Social Care which we will publish early in 2023.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many children were eligible for Pupil Premium in (1) 2020–21, (2) 2021–22, and (3) the current academic year.
Answered by Baroness Barran
The overall pupil premium eligibility figures for each of the last three academic years are 2,161,075 in 2022/23, 2,086,736 in 2021/22, and 2,031,666 in 2020/21. Further information on the number of pupil premium eligible pupils in England, including allocations for financial years 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-allocations-and-conditions-of-grant-2020-to-2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-allocations-and-conditions-of-grant-2021-to-2022, and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-allocations-and-conditions-of-grant-2022-to-2023.
Information in these links shows the total number of pupil premium eligible pupils broken down by the different strands of eligibility. The total number of pupil premium eligible pupils can specifically be found in the ‘School Type’, ‘Local Authority’ and ‘Parliamentary Constituency’ sheets of the relevant allocations file.