Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support London’s schools and local authorities with falling school rolls.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department recognises the challenge some schools face with falling rolls, particularly in London. London is attracting an additional £75.1 million of funding for schools in 2024/25 compared to 2023/24 through the schools Dedicated Schools Grant, which is an increase of 1.6% per pupil excluding growth funding. This takes the total funding for 2024/25 in London to over £7.4 billion, based on current pupil numbers.
In the 2024/25 financial year, the department is changing how ‘growth and falling rolls funding’ is allocated to local authorities, so that this is based not only on increases in pupil numbers, but also decreases. This methodology will ensure that local authorities in which schools are experiencing significant decreases in pupil numbers will attract additional funding to support those schools. The restriction that schools must be judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ in their last Ofsted inspection to be eligible for falling rolls funding has also been removed.
The department is also broadening the scope of growth funding to allow local authorities to use growth funding to meet the revenue costs of removing surplus places. Such funding could support local authorities to repurpose space to create Special Educational needs and Disability (SEND) units, resourced bases, or wraparound childcare provision in mainstream schools. This is activity which we know many local authorities are already undertaking.
More information is available in published guidance at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pre-16-schools-funding-local-authority-guidance-for-2024-to-2025/growth-and-falling-rolls-fund-guidance-2024-to-2025.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the ban on placing children under the age of 16 in unregulated accommodation on outcomes for those children in the 12 months since the introduction of that policy.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The department completed a child rights impact assessment and an equalities impact assessment banning the placement of under 16s in unregulated provision. Children of this age should be placed in children’s homes or in foster care.
The department will keep these under review as we move forward with wider reforms to introduce mandatory national standards and Ofsted registration and inspection requirements for providers of unregulated supported accommodation for 16 and 17-year-old looked-after children and care leavers.
Ofsted will continue to monitor placement practice through the inspecting local authority children’s services framework, and the department will also continue to collect and review data on local authority placements via the annual children looked after data return. Data from the period, since the regulations were laid in 2021, will be submitted to the department by local authorities in 2022. This data will be monitored and tracked by the department and will assist us to understand the impact on outcomes for the children placed in these settings.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to help increase the availability of places in secure children's homes.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
To help local authorities ensure there is sufficient available accommodation for all children in their care, the department is making a substantial investment in building new secure children’s homes (SCH). The Chancellor announced £259 million capital funding in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 to provide high-quality homes for some of the most vulnerable young people, closer to families, schools, and health services. This also includes £195 million to support SCH estates.
This investment will enable local authorities to undertake more ambitious work to reconfigure and expand these estates, reduce the number of children waiting for a secure welfare place in a SCH, and support local authorities to place children in their care closer to families and friends, where possible. This includes replacing ageing parts of the estates, investing in upgrades and improvement works to improve occupancy rates, increase the number of beds, and build new provision in regions, such as London and the West Midlands, where there is currently none.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of the requirement for providers of supported accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds to register with Ofsted on the sufficiency of placements.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Local authorities have a statutory duty to make sure there is sufficient provision in their area to meet the needs of children in their care. The government is supporting local authorities to meet their statutory duty by investing £259 million capital funding to maintain capacity and expand provision in both secure and open children’s homes. This will provide high-quality safe homes for some of the most vulnerable children and young people. This will support local authorities to develop the provision they need locally, that may not be met in the private market.
The government will invest over £142 million across the next three years to support local authorities, providers, and Ofsted to implement mandatory national standards, and Ofsted registration and inspection for currently unregulated supported accommodation providers who accommodate 16 and 17-year-old looked-after children and care leavers.
The department expects the national standards to become mandatory from autumn 2023, following a minimum six-month registration window, which will enable providers to register before the standards come into force, reducing any potential disruption or sufficiency challenges for local authorities. We will invest up to £1.3 million to support providers to prepare for the reforms.
The department will complete the required impact assessments ahead of laying the regulations, which will bring the new regime into effect.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many under-16s are currently placed in unregulated accommodation compared to prior to when the ban on that practice came into force on 9 September 2021.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
On 31 March 2021, 65 looked-after children aged under 16 were placed in unregulated accommodation. Information for the reporting year 2021/22 will not be available until November 2022.