Schools: Absenteeism
Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce absenteeism in schools.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, tackling absence is at the heart of our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. If children are not in school, it does not matter how effective or well supported teaching and learning is; they will not benefit. That is why we are committed to working with the sector to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school and rolling out breakfast clubs to every primary school.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
I am grateful for that. Does the Minister agree that Covid weakened the contract between parents and schools? As a result, we have over 150,000 children missing on average every other day, double the number pre Covid, as well as 1.7 million missing on average every other Friday, again double the number pre Covid. Against the policies that she has just announced, will she agree to have targets to reduce absenteeism for those two categories?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right to identify the scale of children who are both missing school and, in the case of those who are severely absent, missing more than 50%. We have seen those figures continue to rise, unfortunately. I am open to the idea of targets being the right approach, but I absolutely assure him that we are working extremely hard with a range of policies: the breakfast clubs that I have outlined, the specialist mental health professionals, the new guidance expecting close working between schools and local authorities, and the work on data and better analysis of those who are absent. That was started by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and we are absolutely determined to build on it to make sure that we bring those figures down.
Early Years Provision: Bell Review
Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
While we are ambitious for early years and childcare, we will need to consider the outcome of the spending review in thinking about where we can focus our resources. We intend to produce an early years strategy early next year, which will certainly build not only on what we have learnt in government and our work engaging with stakeholders and the dedicated staff in early years and childcare, but on Sir David’s recommendations.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
Does the Minister agree that to deliver the programme, we will need another 35,000 people working in childcare by this time next year and 6,000 by the end of this year? How confident is she that she will find the necessary people?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right about the challenge for the workforce. That is why, last week, as he says, we published further information about the 75,000 additional staff that will be necessary. It will be a challenge, but we have already begun work, focusing on the Government’s childcare recruitment campaign, “Do Something Big”. We have also introduced a T-level in early years and childcare, and through Skills England we will be identifying the gaps and ensuring that the support is there for employers to develop staff in this area. But it will be a very big challenge to make sure that the places and people are there to deliver the entitlement by next September.
Government’s Childcare Expansion
Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right that grandparents quite often play a very important role in supporting their children and grandchildren. I will take away his exhortations about support for grandparents and perhaps return to that matter directly with him when I have found out more about it.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, further to the questions about the workforce, the point has been made that it is about more than just giving an adequate salary for those in childcare; it is about recognition. The Minister referred in her reply to status and staff development. What steps are being taken to develop a proper career structure so that this field of education can compete with the rest of the education field in having a well-defined career structure for people to aim at?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right; it is of course about reward, but it is also about progression and recognition. We have worked hard already to try to reset our relationship with staff across the education system. Over the coming weeks and months, the Government will set out further plans for reform to ensure that the workforce feels supported and valued. We want a system that celebrates and supports early years carers and embeds it into our wider education system. Alongside the work I have already outlined on recruitment, recognition and status is something that we will want to return to in the early years strategy as we develop it.
Independent Review of Children’s Social Care
Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right, I am afraid, in his description of the enormous challenge in children’s social care at the moment, particularly by identifying the role of Ofsted. As I outlined in this House last week, Ofsted will be working closely with the children’s social care sector to determine how it can protect children in the way that he described. Also, on the particular challenges in the children’s social care placement market that my noble friend outlined, local authorities are facing enormous rising costs for these places and, as my noble friend says, for places which increasingly are not serving the needs of children. This Government are clear that excessive profiteering from vulnerable children in care is unacceptable. Through the legislation that we will bring forward, and through the regulation that he described, we will tackle this.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the MacAlister review described foster carers as the bedrock of a social care system. However, in the last five years we have lost 1,000 foster carers, with 5,000 more children in care. For many children, a children’s home with dedicated staff is the right answer, but living with a family in foster care may provide a more stable environment at a quarter of the cost. What is the Minister doing to encourage more foster carers to come forward and provide that care for children?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right: for many children the stability that comes from being in a loving family with foster care is absolutely appropriate for them. Therefore, it is disappointing that, since 2019, the number of mainstream local authority foster carers has dropped by 11%. We will continue the policy of foster care hubs to provide support and resource for local authorities and foster carers in 10 different places—covering 64% of the country—and, where those hubs do not have impact, we will also develop the foster link resource to support children’s social care services in other parts of the country. There is a role to play for all of us and all local authorities in celebrating foster carers and encouraging more people to think about doing it.
Universities: Financial Sustainability
Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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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(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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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(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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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(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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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.
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(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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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(1 year, 3 months ago)
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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.