Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish a list of all the data her Department collects and holds on assessing the needs of young carers; if she will publish links to that data for (a) 2021, (b) 2022 and (c) 2023 to date; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
When a child is assessed as being in need of children’s social care services, social workers will record factors that are relevant to that episode of need, with ‘young carer’ as one of those possible factors. The recorded factors are published annually in the statistics release ‘Characteristics of children in need’, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need.
The data for 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22 shows that in England, a young carer was identified in around 18,000-19,000 episodes of need in each year, or around 4% of episodes with assessment factor information recorded. This data can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/af9db862-a2e7-42fa-8b24-08dafb06f66e.
There can be differences in the recording practices between local authorities, therefore the assessment factors data should be treated with a degree of caution.
From January 2023, all primary and secondary education settings in England will be asked annually if a student undertakes caring responsibilities at home, via the School Census. This will increase young carers visibility in the school system, give a wealth of demographic evidence on who young carers are, and provide an annual data collection to help identify long-term trends.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve the quality of data held by the Government on young carers and on assessing the needs of young carers, and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
When a child is assessed as being in need of children’s social care services, social workers will record factors that are relevant to that episode of need, with ‘young carer’ as one of those possible factors. The recorded factors are published annually in the statistics release ‘Characteristics of children in need’, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need.
The data for 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22 shows that in England, a young carer was identified in around 18,000-19,000 episodes of need in each year, or around 4% of episodes with assessment factor information recorded. This data can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/af9db862-a2e7-42fa-8b24-08dafb06f66e.
There can be differences in the recording practices between local authorities, therefore the assessment factors data should be treated with a degree of caution.
From January 2023, all primary and secondary education settings in England will be asked annually if a student undertakes caring responsibilities at home, via the School Census. This will increase young carers visibility in the school system, give a wealth of demographic evidence on who young carers are, and provide an annual data collection to help identify long-term trends.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department plans to take to enforce the duties for assessment of children in need that local authorities must meet, as outlined in the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance.
Answered by Will Quince
Ofsted produces guidance, ‘inspecting local authority children’s services’ (last updated April 2022), which sets out a framework for inspecting local authority children’s services to assist inspectors to be consistent in their inspections while having regard to local circumstances. Among other things, the inspections cover the effectiveness of local authority children’s services to help and protect children including those at risk of harm, with the focus on the experiences of children and young people; the effectiveness of leaders and managers; and the quality of professional practice.
The guidance is clear on what steps will be taken if services are found to be inadequate, including the intervention powers of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education.
The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inspecting-local-authority-childrens-services-from-2018/inspecting-local-authority-childrens-services.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to distribute documentation to all local authorities in England to reiterate their duty to (a) assess children in need and (b) provide equipment based on the findings of that assessment.
Answered by Will Quince
The department has published statutory guidance (Working Together to Safeguard Children), for all local authorities in England setting out the duties for assessment of children in need, including requirements for the publication of threshold documents and the framework for assessments. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2.
The guidance is clear that such assessments should focus on outcomes, providing clear decisions on which services and support should be provided to improve the welfare of the child. Guidance is clear that, for disabled children, this includes provision of special equipment under Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970.
On 15 December 2021, Ministers from the Department for Education, Department for Health and Social Security and the Home Office sent a joint letter to all local safeguarding partners (including local authority chief executives) to re-emphasise their roles in safeguarding children as set out in Working Together.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential cost savings generated by funding additional early intervention support for disabled children and families.
Answered by Will Quince
At the Budget, the government announced a significant £500 million package to improve support for families. This includes an additional £200 million - a 40% real-terms uplift by the 2024-25 financial year – for the Supporting Families Programme to enable local authorities and their partners to provide help earlier and secure better outcomes for up to 300,000 families across all aspects of their lives.
The Supporting Families programme works with the most vulnerable children and families, around a third of whom have physical and/or learning disabilities, and this investment will provide local authorities with additional funding to assist this group.
The Supporting Families programme evaluation shows that the programme offers indirect savings to the public sector of £1.51 for every £1 spent and wider economic benefits of £2.28 for every £1 spent, including a reduction in the number of children coming into care, children and youth offending and Jobseekers Allowances claims.
The Supporting Families evaluation cost benefit analysis does not focus on individual groups supported by the Programme, so we cannot disaggregate the savings for specific groups such as children and families with disabilities.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the finding of the Disabled Children’s Partnerships' report, entitled Left Behind, that 40 per cent of local authorities have reduced respite care for families during the covid-19 outbreak, what plans he has to provide dedicated additional funding for respite care for families with disabled children.
Answered by Will Quince
I refer the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton, to the answer given by me, on 20 October 2021 to Question 56976.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve the quality of digital education for elderly people in the UK during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
For adults (19+) with low-level or no digital skills, we have introduced a legal entitlement to study new Essential Digital Skills qualifications (EDSQs) at entry level and level 1 for free. EDSQs are a new qualification type, based on new national standards for essential digital skills, which will provide adults with the digital skills needed for life and work. The new digital entitlement mirrors the existing legal entitlements for English and maths and sets digital skills on an equal footing in the adult education system to English and maths, as a third basic skill.
The government is committed to making essential digital skills provision more accessible and flexible by building on the innovation in online learning implemented during the COVID-19 outbreak, ensuring that all adults can gain essential digital skills at a time and place that suits them.
We also continue to support the provision of basic digital skills training in community learning settings through the Adult Education Budget. This provision has strong participation from older learners.
The Skills Toolkit was created in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, primarily to help give workers who had been furloughed or were at risk of redundancy an opportunity to retrain. However, the courses are accessible to all and include free, high quality digital and numeracy courses.
Courses on offer cover a range of levels, from everyday maths and tools for using email and social media more effectively at work, to basic digital skills offered by Lloyds Bank, the Open University and Microsoft.
As of 30 May 2021, there have been an estimated 219,000 course registrations via The Skills Toolkit.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the number of days of in-person learning that has been lost to pupils since schools reopened in March 2021 as covid-19 restrictions were eased.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education publishes weekly attendance figures in the ‘Attendance in education and early years settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak’ publication, including the number of children who were off school or self-isolating due to: a confirmed case of COVID-19, a suspected case of COVID-19, self-isolating due to potential contact with a case inside the school setting, self-isolating due to potential contact with a case outside the school setting, or their school being closed due to COVID related reasons.
The publication is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.
Table 1B, which is an accompanying file available to download, has daily attendance figures which cover the period requested (March 2021-present).
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect on pupils attainment of the number of in-person learning days that have been lost to pupils since schools reopened in March 2021 as covid-19 restrictions were eased.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Understanding the impact of COVID-19 disruption on the attainment and progress of all pupils is a key research priority for the Government. The Department has commissioned Renaissance Learning to provide a baseline assessment of missed learning for pupils in schools in England and to monitor progress over the course of the year. The latest interim findings from this research were published on GOV.UK on 4 June 2021: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupils-progress-in-the-2020-to-2021-academic-year-interim-report.
Primary pupils were on average around 2 to 3.5 months behind expectations in March 2021 - similar to the amount pupils were behind expectations by when they returned to school in September 2020. The Department will be using the research to monitor progress for the rest of this year to further understand the continued impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on lost education and education recovery. The next phase of analysis will allow us to assess the impact of any disruption to education since schools reopened to all pupils in March 2021. The full report will be published once the study is completed in October 2021.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the More Than A Score report, Drop the SATs for Good, published in 2021, whether he plans to implement any of the recommendations of that report.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Assessment is a crucial part of a child’s schooling and fundamental in a high performing education system. Statutory assessments at primary school are an essential part of ensuring that all pupils master the basics of reading, writing and Mathematics to prepare them for secondary school. Assessment data also enables parents, schools, and the Department to understand the impact of lost time in education and recovery initiatives. As such, the Department has no plans to cancel the statutory implementation of the Reception Baseline Assessment in September 2021, and the Department continues to plan for a return to a full programme of primary assessments in the 2021/22 academic year.
In 2017, the Government carried out a consultation into primary assessment in England. The consultation received over 4,000 responses from a diverse range of backgrounds and specialisms, providing a broad and informed range of views that informed policy on the current primary assessment system. In addition, the Department engages with relevant stakeholders on a regular basis to understand their views on primary assessment.