Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many School Attendance Order (a) prosecutions and (b) fines there were under section 443 of the Education Act 1996 in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The volume of defendants prosecuted and fined for offences under 443 of the Education Act 1996 from 2015 - 2024 (January to September) is provided in the attached table 1.
Note that that this is an additional breakdown of statistics published by the Ministry of Justice on volumes of criminal proceedings.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what progress he has made on the Development Review; and how he plans to use that review to inform the planned reduction in UK aid spending.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Development Review considered how to maximise the UK's combined diplomatic and development expertise in its international development work. Reducing the overall size of our Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget will necessarily have an impact on the scale and shape of the work we do. The recommendations of the Development Review, alongside the Global Impact and Economic Diplomacy reviews, are now being considered as part of the Foreign Secretary's wider work to reform the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and will also inform decisions on the ODA budget.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of local authority employees working with home educating families that are only employed during school term time; and whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill on the working hours these staff will need to undertake in the future.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department does not hold information on the number of local authority employees working with home-educating families that are only employed during term time. Local authorities determine their own approaches to staffing.
Additional local authority resource will be required to undertake the new duties created by the Children Not in School measures detailed in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. We are considering these additional requirements and will conduct a full new burdens assessment as is required.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard applications are processed within 21 days.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Processing Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard (DoLS) applications is the responsibility of local authorities. There is considerable variation in how local authorities process and complete their DoLS applications with some areas successfully processing applications within 21 days. It is the responsibility of local authorities to make sure their systems for managing DoLS are informed by best practice.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has had with the Royal College of Physicians on the administrative error in the 2023 Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK part two examinations.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise that this will be a concerning time for those doctors affected. We have asked the UK Statutory Education Bodies, which is NHS England in the case of England, to work with the Royal College of Physicians and the General Medical Council to ensure this issue is rectified as a matter of urgency.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure that critical cavity nesting bird habitats are mandated in new housing developments.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer to Question UIN 22080 on 15 January 2025.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the School Attendance Order process in the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill on local authority staff time.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is legislating through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to make School Attendance Orders a more efficient remedy to ensure that children are in receipt of suitable education. This includes making it an offence for parents to withdraw a child subject to a School Attendance Order from school without following the proper procedure. This means that parents convicted of breaching a School Attendance Order can be prosecuted again if they continue to breach it without local authorities having to restart the process from the beginning, which will save resources.
Other measures which will impact on local authority staff time include additional statutory timelines on parts of the process, a new requirement for local authorities to consider the home and other learning environments, and a new power for local authorities to request to see the child in their home(s).
Where additional local authority resources will be required to undertake new duties created by these School Attendance Order changes, the department is considering these additional requirements and will conduct a full new burdens assessment as is required.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when draft guidance on the Children Not In School measures in the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will be published for consultation.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces a duty on local authorities to maintain registers of children who are not in school, and a duty on parents to provide certain information for those registers. Parents must only provide details of their child’s name, date of birth, address, the parents’ names and addresses, the details of where the child is receiving education and who is providing it. All other information is optional to provide. Parents will only be expected to notify their local authority of that information when they first begin home-educating, or their circumstances change, such as a move to a new area or a new education provision.
The department will share clear guidance on what information parents should provide to their local authority to avoid irrelevant information being given. This will form part of the statutory guidance we will issue following a public consultation. That consultation will take place following the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill reaching Royal Assent.
In the published regulatory impact assessment for the ‘Children not in school’ measures, it is stated that we will request data from local authorities concerning the use of school attendance orders and how many result in a conviction for breach. We believe that a higher use of such orders would indicate a lack of compliance with the registration duties and higher numbers of parents who have opted to home educate but have been unable to provide a suitable education, who in the absence of a mandatory register, would have gone unknown to their local authority. A lower rate may indicate high compliance with the registration duties and parents being able to provide a suitable education, potentially through take-up of the support duty on their local authorities. Both outcomes would inform further policy development in this area.
The department began a termly collection of data relating to home education in autumn 2022. The data collection includes an annual return of the usage of school attendance orders. Data for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education.
In reference to the request to publish historic data on the usage of school attendance orders, the department does not hold information on the use of fines for breach of those orders. Fines for non-compliance are a result of a criminal conviction, and that data is recorded and held by the Ministry of Justice.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's Children Not in School Registers: regulatory impact assessment for the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, if she will publish the statistics on School Attendance Order fines for the last 10 years.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces a duty on local authorities to maintain registers of children who are not in school, and a duty on parents to provide certain information for those registers. Parents must only provide details of their child’s name, date of birth, address, the parents’ names and addresses, the details of where the child is receiving education and who is providing it. All other information is optional to provide. Parents will only be expected to notify their local authority of that information when they first begin home-educating, or their circumstances change, such as a move to a new area or a new education provision.
The department will share clear guidance on what information parents should provide to their local authority to avoid irrelevant information being given. This will form part of the statutory guidance we will issue following a public consultation. That consultation will take place following the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill reaching Royal Assent.
In the published regulatory impact assessment for the ‘Children not in school’ measures, it is stated that we will request data from local authorities concerning the use of school attendance orders and how many result in a conviction for breach. We believe that a higher use of such orders would indicate a lack of compliance with the registration duties and higher numbers of parents who have opted to home educate but have been unable to provide a suitable education, who in the absence of a mandatory register, would have gone unknown to their local authority. A lower rate may indicate high compliance with the registration duties and parents being able to provide a suitable education, potentially through take-up of the support duty on their local authorities. Both outcomes would inform further policy development in this area.
The department began a termly collection of data relating to home education in autumn 2022. The data collection includes an annual return of the usage of school attendance orders. Data for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education.
In reference to the request to publish historic data on the usage of school attendance orders, the department does not hold information on the use of fines for breach of those orders. Fines for non-compliance are a result of a criminal conviction, and that data is recorded and held by the Ministry of Justice.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many School Attendance Orders were issued by each local authority in England for each of the last five years.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces a duty on local authorities to maintain registers of children who are not in school, and a duty on parents to provide certain information for those registers. Parents must only provide details of their child’s name, date of birth, address, the parents’ names and addresses, the details of where the child is receiving education and who is providing it. All other information is optional to provide. Parents will only be expected to notify their local authority of that information when they first begin home-educating, or their circumstances change, such as a move to a new area or a new education provision.
The department will share clear guidance on what information parents should provide to their local authority to avoid irrelevant information being given. This will form part of the statutory guidance we will issue following a public consultation. That consultation will take place following the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill reaching Royal Assent.
In the published regulatory impact assessment for the ‘Children not in school’ measures, it is stated that we will request data from local authorities concerning the use of school attendance orders and how many result in a conviction for breach. We believe that a higher use of such orders would indicate a lack of compliance with the registration duties and higher numbers of parents who have opted to home educate but have been unable to provide a suitable education, who in the absence of a mandatory register, would have gone unknown to their local authority. A lower rate may indicate high compliance with the registration duties and parents being able to provide a suitable education, potentially through take-up of the support duty on their local authorities. Both outcomes would inform further policy development in this area.
The department began a termly collection of data relating to home education in autumn 2022. The data collection includes an annual return of the usage of school attendance orders. Data for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education.
In reference to the request to publish historic data on the usage of school attendance orders, the department does not hold information on the use of fines for breach of those orders. Fines for non-compliance are a result of a criminal conviction, and that data is recorded and held by the Ministry of Justice.