Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the cost to the public purse of theft and fraud to (a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) its non-departmental public bodies in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
In 2011 the government established the Fraud, Error and Debt Taskforce to develop and coordinate the delivery of initiatives across government as previously no systematic attempt had been made. Since 2012/13 the department has therefore published a total for overall detected fraud in the department consolidated accounts. Available on GOV.UK at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-annual-reports.
Since 2017 Cabinet Office have also published annual detected fraud figures for all central departments and related bodies. Also available on GOV.UK at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cross-government-fraud-landscape-annual-report-2017.
Fraud and error figures for Executive Agencies (EA’s) and Non-Department Public Bodies in years prior to 2013-14 were not collected centrally and therefore unavailable. From 2013-14 onwards, the department reported fraud figures to the Cabinet Office in line with their definition of fraud costs and covered all EA’s and Arm’s Length Bodies. Following machinery of government changes from June 2016 onwards, the department also supplies figures for higher education and further education including the Student Loan Company.
| 12-13 | 13-14 | 14-15 | 15-16 | 16-17 |
Department (inc. EFA) | £0.0M | £0.04 | To be confirmed (with Cabinet Office) | £1.45M | £2.28 |
The figures shown are taken from published material in the accounts or the Cross Government Fraud Landscape Annual report.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many people in her Department with responsibility for social media are employed on an (a) full and (b) part-time basis.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
There are five full time staff members in the social media team.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the total amount, including interest, is of student loans owed by (a) all students and (b) students who commenced their studies after 2011.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Statistics covering English student loans are published annually by the Student Loans Company (SLC) in the Statistical First Release (SFR) ‘Student Loans in England’.
Information on English higher education loans outstanding by repayment plan can be found in Table 1a of the SFR.
At the end of the financial year 2016-17, around £89.3 billion was outstanding in English higher education loans, of which £45.0 billion was held by post-2012 undergraduate borrowers and a further £0.3 billion by master’s loan borrowers.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much of the outstanding total on the student loan book for students is interest.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Statistics covering English student loans are published annually by the Student Loans Company (SLC) in the Statistical First Release (SFR) ‘Student Loans in England’.
Interest added to student loans is capitalised. This means that it is not possible to separate the amount associated with the loan principal from the interest accrued on the total loan book in the way requested.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department hold on how much and what proportion of outstanding student loan debt owed by students attributable to tuition fee payments.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Statistics covering English student loans are published annually by the Student Loans Company (SLC) in the Statistical First Release (SFR) ‘Student Loans in England’.
Information on English higher education loans outstanding can be found in Table 1a of the SFR. A breakdown showing the proportion attributable to tuition fee loans is not available in the requested format.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many public engagements for which a media calling notice was issued were attended by a departmental Minister in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
I am sorry, but information on ministerial attendance at public engagements for which a media calling notice was issued is not readily available or held centrally and could be compiled only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on advertising on social media in each month since January 2016.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The government has a duty to provide the public with information and to ensure the effective running and uptake of public services. Social media offers a cost effective and targeted communication tool to achieve this.
The majority of social media spend over the last 18 months has been in support of teacher recruitment. Since September 2016 (when the new teacher recruitment campaign launched), social media advertising has generated 19,000 registrations of interest in teaching. We have also used social media to support uptake of 30 hours free childcare and to encourage the reporting of child abuse.
Each month the department publishes spend over £25,000 on gov.uk. Below we have summarised the spend on social media.
Date | Spend |
January 2016 | £76,298 |
February 2016 | £87,263 |
March 2016 | £66,994 |
April 2016 | £94,652 |
May 2016 | £67,011 |
June 2016 | £33,843 |
July 2016 | £26,633 |
August 2016 | £36,399 |
September 2016 | £12,261 |
October 2016 | £65,870 |
November 2016 | £84,448 |
December 2016 | £86,184 |
January 2017 | £79,001 |
February 2017 | £109,685 |
March 2017 | £163,904 |
April 2017 | £53,013 |
May 2017 | £88,963 |
June 2017 | £92,495 |