Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to introduce a right to paid employment leave to support kinship carers.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises the challenges that many kinship carers face in continuing to work alongside the pressures of taking in a child, and we believe they should be supported to remain in work where possible.
Kinship carers are likely to benefit from additional support and flexibility from their employers to help them balance work with providing the best possible care. Our guidance for employers, ‘Kinship Carers in the Workplace’, sets out best practice for supporting kinship carers at work.
The department will join a small number of private sector employers in offering a pay and leave entitlement to all eligible staff who become kinship carers.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of 27 April 2021, Official Report, column 86WH, what steps his Department has taken to (a) investigate the use of fire and rehire tactics by its executive non-departmental public bodies, (b) communicate the Government's position on fire and rehire tactics to those bodies and )c) discourage the use of such tactics by those bodies.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has a robust governance structure in place across its non-departmental public bodies, which ensures full visibility, and approval where required, of any planned redundancies. No additional communications or investigations have been necessary on ‘fire and rehire’.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the expenditure by local authorities on the provision of free rail passes for pupils (a) up to the age of 16 to travel to their nearest school and (b) from families on maximum working tax credit or entitlement to free school meals; and how many school pupils benefit from such rail passes.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities have a statutory duty under section 508B of the Education Act 1996 to make travel arrangements to enable all eligible children of compulsory school age to attend their nearest suitable school. For low income families, there are additional rights to free home to school transport where children are entitled to Free School Meals or whose parents are in receipt of the maximum Working Tax Credit. It is for local authorities to decide how to fulfil that duty. They may, if they wish, provide pupils with rail passes. The information requested is not held centrally, regarding pupil numbers or detailed local authority expenditure.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the expenditure by local authorities on provision of (a) free or reduced cost rail travel for young people continuing in education beyond the age of 16, (b) rail passes for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities or mobility problems to get to school in the last 12 months.
Answered by Anne Milton
The statutory responsibility for transport to education or training for 16 to 18 year olds rests with local authorities and they are expected to set out appropriate plans which reflect local needs and circumstances.
Local authorities are required under Section 251 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to prepare and submit statements about planned and actual expenditure on education and children and young people’s services to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education.
The most recent data for 2017/18 is available at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/section-251-2017-to-2018. However, these annual statements do not include the level of detail needed to estimate a local authority’s expenditure on free or reduced cost rail travel for young people, including those with special educational needs and disability or mobility problems.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent representations he has received on the number of children with autism informally excluded from school.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Secretary of State has received several recent parliamentary questions about the informal exclusion of children with autism. Officials from the department have also met with Ambitious about Autism in March 2014, to discuss its concerns about this issue, raised in the report, Ruled Out.
The government's view remains clear. No child should be unlawfully excluded. Ofsted and the department would take seriously evidence that a school had acted unlawfully in excluding a pupil. In addition, most children on the autism spectrum would be considered disabled under the Equality Act 2010. Where disabled children are discriminated against through unlawful exclusion their parents can make a claim to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability). The Tribunal has wide ranging powers, including the power to require the reinstatement of a pupil.
Awareness of autism and appropriate skills are essential to meeting the needs of autistic children. The reforms we are introducing through the Children and Families Act will provide for earlier and better assessment of children and young people's needs. We're also investing more than £3 million of funding over two years to raise awareness of autism and help schools and colleges deliver the support these children and young people need. This includes £1.5 million for the Autism Education Trust to provide tiered training to early years, school and further education college staff, as well as £440,000 to the National Autistic Society, part of which is being used to provide advice to professionals and parents on exclusion.