Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had recent discussions with the publishers of educational resources on the matter of commercial content licensing.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Secretary of State for Education has not had any discussions with the publishers of educational resources on the matter of commercial content licensing.
Oak National Academy has been discussing third party content for its curriculum resources with publishers and other rights holders. The Department wants to support these discussions and has made contact with relevant publishers to this end, in order to support Oak’s aims to reduce teacher workload and improve pupil outcomes.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has been involved in Oak National Academy's commercial content licensing discussions with publishers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Secretary of State for Education has not had any discussions with the publishers of educational resources on the matter of commercial content licensing.
Oak National Academy has been discussing third party content for its curriculum resources with publishers and other rights holders. The Department wants to support these discussions and has made contact with relevant publishers to this end, in order to support Oak’s aims to reduce teacher workload and improve pupil outcomes.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential benefits of waiving exam fees for home-educated children.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government supports the right for parents to choose to home educate their children. By electing to home educate, parents or guardians also accept full responsibility for their child’s education, including any costs associated with their education and exams.
Some Local Authorities may provide assistance to home educating families, including for public examinations, but this is at their discretion.
The Department has begun a voluntary, termly collection of data from Local Authorities on elective home education, including details of the types of support Local Authorities are able to offer families. Our existing guidance for Local Authorities on home education sets out examples of the types of additional support authorities can offer. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education.
The Department knows that many Local Authorities offer help in accessing free or discounted resources and facilities for home educating families, such as signposting to local groups and library schemes, as well as to curriculum resources. Through continuing data analysis, the Department will build a better understanding of the support offered, problems faced in accessing support and where more assistance should be targeted.
As part of its commitment to introducing statutory Local Authority registers for children not in school, the Department also remains committed to introducing a new duty on Local Authorities to provide support to home educating families, should they want it. This could, in theory, include examination support, as well as supporting parents to access curriculum resources. The Department will legislate for these Children Not in School measures at a suitable future opportunity to help Local Authorities to ensure that all children in their areas are receiving an appropriate education, regardless of where they are educated.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of access to curricular resources for home-educated children.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government supports the right for parents to choose to home educate their children. By electing to home educate, parents or guardians also accept full responsibility for their child’s education, including any costs associated with their education and exams.
Some Local Authorities may provide assistance to home educating families, including for public examinations, but this is at their discretion.
The Department has begun a voluntary, termly collection of data from Local Authorities on elective home education, including details of the types of support Local Authorities are able to offer families. Our existing guidance for Local Authorities on home education sets out examples of the types of additional support authorities can offer. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education.
The Department knows that many Local Authorities offer help in accessing free or discounted resources and facilities for home educating families, such as signposting to local groups and library schemes, as well as to curriculum resources. Through continuing data analysis, the Department will build a better understanding of the support offered, problems faced in accessing support and where more assistance should be targeted.
As part of its commitment to introducing statutory Local Authority registers for children not in school, the Department also remains committed to introducing a new duty on Local Authorities to provide support to home educating families, should they want it. This could, in theory, include examination support, as well as supporting parents to access curriculum resources. The Department will legislate for these Children Not in School measures at a suitable future opportunity to help Local Authorities to ensure that all children in their areas are receiving an appropriate education, regardless of where they are educated.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report entitled The Recent Evolution of Apprenticeships, published by the Sutton Trust on 8 December 2022, what assessment she has made of consequences for her policies of the take-up of apprenticeships by (a) age and (b) socio-economic background of apprentices.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The table attached shows the take-up of apprenticeships by age and home deprivation level from 2017/18 to 2022/23.
The department wants to see more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds accessing higher and degree level apprenticeships as they are crucial in driving social mobility by boosting skills and improving earnings and career opportunities.
We are promoting apprenticeships to students of all backgrounds through our Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge programme. The department publishes the Higher and Degree apprenticeship vacancy listing twice a year, which will highlight over 350 vacancies across the country that are available for young people to apply for in 2023 and 2024. The link to the vacancy listing can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-and-degree-apprenticeships.
The department wants to ensure apprenticeships are accessible for young people and is working with UCAS on the expansion of their apprenticeships service. From this autumn, young people will see more personalised options on UCAS, including apprenticeships. From autumn 2024, students will be able to apply for apprenticeships alongside an undergraduate degree application. This will help put technical and vocational education on an equal footing with traditional academic routes.
The department is also making up to £8 million available to higher education providers in the 2022/23 financial year to support them to grow their degree apprenticeship offers. We are also working with the Office for Students to improve access to and participation in higher and degree apprenticeships.
The department knows that small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key in creating apprenticeship opportunities for those in disadvantaged areas and we have recently launched an SME pathfinder in four regions of the North of England to support employers to find and hire new apprentices at all levels.
The department provides additional funding to employers and training providers to support them to take on young apprentices aged 16 to18, and apprentices aged 19 to 24 that have an education, health and care plan or have been in care. Apprentices starting in August under the age of 25 that have been in local authority care can also claim a bursary of £3,000.
The department will continue to champion the Social Mobility Commission’s Apprenticeships Toolkit for employers, and work with some of the country’s most influential employers through the Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network to set out how employers can better recruit and support apprentices from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Sutton Trust report entitled The Recent Evolution of Apprenticeships, published on 8 December, what steps she is taking to increase the uptake of higher and degree level apprenticeships by young people from more disadvantaged areas.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The table attached shows the take-up of apprenticeships by age and home deprivation level from 2017/18 to 2022/23.
The department wants to see more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds accessing higher and degree level apprenticeships as they are crucial in driving social mobility by boosting skills and improving earnings and career opportunities.
We are promoting apprenticeships to students of all backgrounds through our Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge programme. The department publishes the Higher and Degree apprenticeship vacancy listing twice a year, which will highlight over 350 vacancies across the country that are available for young people to apply for in 2023 and 2024. The link to the vacancy listing can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-and-degree-apprenticeships.
The department wants to ensure apprenticeships are accessible for young people and is working with UCAS on the expansion of their apprenticeships service. From this autumn, young people will see more personalised options on UCAS, including apprenticeships. From autumn 2024, students will be able to apply for apprenticeships alongside an undergraduate degree application. This will help put technical and vocational education on an equal footing with traditional academic routes.
The department is also making up to £8 million available to higher education providers in the 2022/23 financial year to support them to grow their degree apprenticeship offers. We are also working with the Office for Students to improve access to and participation in higher and degree apprenticeships.
The department knows that small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key in creating apprenticeship opportunities for those in disadvantaged areas and we have recently launched an SME pathfinder in four regions of the North of England to support employers to find and hire new apprentices at all levels.
The department provides additional funding to employers and training providers to support them to take on young apprentices aged 16 to18, and apprentices aged 19 to 24 that have an education, health and care plan or have been in care. Apprentices starting in August under the age of 25 that have been in local authority care can also claim a bursary of £3,000.
The department will continue to champion the Social Mobility Commission’s Apprenticeships Toolkit for employers, and work with some of the country’s most influential employers through the Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network to set out how employers can better recruit and support apprentices from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many complaints he received of maladministration by academy admission authority appeal panels in each of the last five years; and what the average time taken was to (a) reply to and (b) resolve complaints in the same period.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department aims to acknowledge all complaints within three working days. In relation to admission maladministration complaints relating to academies, the Department has received the following number in the last five calendar years:
Year | Academy Admission Appeal Panel Complaints | Average Days to Resolve |
2018 | 233 | 20.68 |
2019 | 352 | 23.39 |
2020 | 406 | 15.78 |
2021 | 339 | 15.66 |
2022 | 253 | 19.07 |
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help improve the recruitment and retention of early years practitioners in (a) Hull West and Hessle and (b) England.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department is working proactively with the sector and local authorities, including those in the Kingston upon Hull area, to build our understanding of the situation and how we might support the sector to attract more staff to work in early years education and childcare.
The government is providing a package of training, qualifications, expert guidance, and targeted support for the early years sector to help address existing recruitment and retention challenges, including providing additional funding for graduate level specialist training leading to early years teacher status and an accredited level 3 early years SENCO qualification. More information on the early years education recovery programme can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-education-recovery-programme.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the financial performance of the Office for Students.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Officials in the department and the Office for Students (OfS) regularly discuss the OfS's finances and funding and its business planning and efficiency, including the level of resource it needs to deliver its priorities.
The Framework Document between the department and the OfS can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1129117/OfS_framework_document.pdf.
The document sets out the governance framework within which the OfS and the department operate, and the OfS’s core responsibilities, including in relation to financial matters.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she expects the Public Bodies Review Programme for 2023-24 to assess the Office for Students.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Cabinet Office has not yet published the list of public bodies to be prioritised for review in the 2023/24 financial year.
It is currently the intention that the Office for Students will be reviewed under the Public Bodies Review Programme from autumn 2023, with findings likely published by the end of the financial year. These timings may change.
Cabinet Office guidance outlines the requirements for reviews of public bodies, including the new requirements covering governance, accountability, efficacy and efficiency of arm’s length bodies.