Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of funding school trip coach costs for visits to Parliament.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The government is committed to creating opportunities for all children to achieve and thrive. The department has not made an assessment of the merits of funding school trips to Parliament. It is for schools to decide whether to offer school trips to their pupils and what trips to offer. Schools receive pupil premium funding to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils and may use this funding to support extracurricular activities, including school trips and associated transport costs. Schools may also ask parents to contribute towards the cost of school trips but may not make compulsory charges for trips which take place during school hours, or are part of the national curriculum, religious education or the syllabus for a public exam the pupil is being prepared for at the school.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support adult education in Cornwall.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is investing in education and skills training for adults through the Adult Skills Fund (ASF), which is worth £1.34 billion this academic year. The ASF fully or co-funds education and skills training for eligible adults aged 19 and above, from pre-entry to level 3, to help them gain the skills they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning.
Currently, approximately 60% of the ASF is devolved to nine Mayoral Combined Authorities and the Mayor of London, acting where appropriate through the Greater London Authority. These authorities are responsible for the provision of ASF-funded adult education for their residents and allocation of the ASF to learning providers. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is responsible for the remaining ASF in non-devolved areas.
Cornwall is currently a non-devolved area, meaning the ESFA grant funds the providers who decide the provision offered. The department believes that local areas should have more control over adult education in their areas. As such, the government has agreed a devolution deal with Cornwall which includes the devolution of the ASF from the 2025/26 academic year. This will provide the area with the ability to commission adult education to Cornwall residents.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of additional Government-funded Adult Education Centres across Cornwall.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Adult education, for learners aged 19 years and above, is funded through the Adult Skills Fund (ASF) and delivered through further education colleges, local authority adult education services, training providers and Institutes of Adult Learning. Providers have the freedom and flexibility to determine how they use their ASF allocations to meet the needs of their communities.
Adult education is offered in college buildings, adult education centres, and accessible informal venues, such as libraries and community centres to meet local needs. It is for local providers to decide if a specific adult education centre is required for their community.
The government believes that local areas are best able to meet local needs, which is why it is committed to devolving the ASF to parts of the country that want a devolution deal. Cornwall is due to receive a devolution deal for the 2025/26 academic year and will be able to use their share of the ASF to best meet their needs, including on reviewing how their funding is best distributed locally to adult education providers.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing ring-fenced funding to post-16 colleges to fund bus transport for students.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises that the cost and availability of public transport can be an issue for some 16 to 19-year-olds when travelling to their college or sixth form.
It is the responsibility of local authorities to put in place transport arrangements to help young people aged 16 to 19 to access education or training, including those aged 19 to 24 with special educational needs, through appropriately prioritising their spending.
Many local authorities do offer some form of subsidised transport, for example, in North Cornwall, Cornwall Council offer discounted fares to all young people, and free transport for those with education, health and care plans to access relevant learning where eligible.
The 16 to 19 Bursary Fund can be used for transport costs to support young people to access education and training. Schools and colleges are responsible for deciding how to distribute their bursary allocations to students, and for establishing what criteria to use.
To ensure that the distribution of this funding around the regions matches the needs of young people, we use up-to-date disadvantage data and focus more on the costs of transport, to ensure institutions get more Bursary Fund if their students are from more disadvantaged areas and/or travel a long way to attend. Institutions decide which young people receive bursaries and determine the level of financial support they receive. They develop their own eligibility criteria for access to the discretionary bursary fund and must publish information on this for students.
More generally, 16 to 19 funding allocations which go to a range of providers including colleges, incorporate funding to support disadvantaged students. This funding does not have specified delivery conditions and providers are free to choose the best ways to use this additional funding to attract, retain and support disadvantaged students, including offering travel support.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to support Budehaven Community School's SEND unit.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.
Support for Budehaven Community School is the responsibility of Cornwall County Council as the maintaining local authority.
The department wants to drive a consistent and inclusive approach to supporting children and young people with SEND through early identification, effective support, high quality teaching and effective allocation of resources. We will work with the sector as essential and valued partners to deliver our shared mission.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools receive adequate funding to provide equitable access to arts education alongside English Baccalaureate subjects in (a) Cornwall and (b) England.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government is clear that arts subjects should be part of every child’s education.
The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review will advise on how the department delivers a broader curriculum for every child, including arts subjects and English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects. The department will also support children to study a creative or vocational subject to the age of 16 and ensure accountability measures reflect this.
Schools have autonomy over how they spend their core funding and can decide how to best allocate their resources for the benefit of their students. The department does not provide schools with dedicated or ring-fenced funding for either arts subjects or EBacc subjects. Schools do not report back on the funding they have allocated to different subjects.
Overall core revenue funding for schools totals almost £61.8 billion in the 2024/25 financial year. More specifically, through the Dedicated Schools Grant, Cornwall is receiving £406.3 million for mainstream schools in 2024/25.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 26 July 2024 to Question 627 on Free School Meals, if she will make it her policy to commission an assessment of the potential merits of broadening the eligibility criteria for children to receive free school meals.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has not made a formal assessment of the merits of broadening the free school meals (FSM) eligibility criteria. The department is committed to tackling the grave issue of child poverty, which has gone up by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. That is why the government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, tackling the root causes, and giving every child the best start at life. To support this, a new ministerial taskforce has been set up to begin work on the Child Poverty Strategy.
The department is also committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity so that all children have the freedom to achieve and thrive in education. To support this aim, the government is committed to introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary school, to set children up for the day and ensure they are ready to learn, while supporting parents and carers to work.
The department has additionally invested in programmes which provide over three million children with free and nutritious meals. This includes FSM, which 2.1 million disadvantaged pupils are registered to receive, and universal infant free school meals, which will benefit around 1.3 million pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of SEND provision in Cornwall; and what steps she plans to take to with Cornwall Council to help improve the (a) funding and (b) delivery of SEND services.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department has been working with the local area partnership since the Area Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Inspection in February 2023. The inspection concluded that the local area partnership’s arrangements lead to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
The department holds regular, formal monthly monitoring meetings, in partnership with NHS England, that are focussed on the impact of actions taken to improve the lives of children and young people with SEND and their families. The department has put in place a SEND advisor and funded the Research and Improvement for SEND Excellence (RISE) consortium to support improvement.
Cornwall is part of the Developing Better Value in SEND (DBV in SEND) programme, which supports local authorities and their local area partners to improve the delivery of SEND services for children and young people whilst working towards financial sustainability.
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with SEND or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. The department will continue with its work with the local area to ensure that they deliver further improvements in services.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of children (a) with an education, health and care plan and (b) who had previously been identified in the SEN Support category by their school were not in school in Cornwall in each of the last five years.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department publishes statistics on education, health and care (EHC) plans at local authority level, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans. This includes information on children and young people not in school or further education, including those awaiting provision, in elective home education, in other arrangements, having had notice of their plan to cease, or Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET). The number and proportion of children and young people with an EHC plan who were elsewhere than at school in Cornwall from 2020 to 2024, which includes the last 5 years of data available, can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/6066ca5a-0309-412e-6920-08dca70c1109.
The data collection for EHC plans does not include information on previous Special Educational Needs (SEN) support identification.
Wider data on special educational needs, including information on the total number of pupils with EHC plans and SEN support at local authority level, is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will review the SEND funding formula allocations for pupils in Cornwall.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department will take time to consider whether to make changes to the high needs national funding formula (NFF) that is used to allocate funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The department will consider the impact of any formula changes on local authorities, including Cornwall County Council. It is important that there is a fair education funding system that directs funding to where it is needed.
Budgets for the 2025/26 financial year have not been set, which means that decisions on the high needs NFF and the publication of allocations for that year will not be to the usual timescales.