Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has plans to bring forward secondary legislation to ensure that children who (a) arrive in the UK without a parent or carer and (b) are entitled to be looked after by local authorities under the Children Act 1989 are (i) provided care and protection as looked after children and (ii) not housed in hotels.
Answered by Brendan Clarke-Smith
We have no plans to bring forward secondary legislation. The Home Office has been temporarily accommodating unaccompanied asylum seeking children in hotels on an emergency basis whilst they await a permanent local authority placement. Since February 2022, all local authorities with children’s services in the UK have been directed to participate in the National Transfer Scheme (NTS) with the aim of ensuring that children are moved out of hotel accommodation and into the care of a local authority as quickly as possible. We have seen an increased rate of transfers since directed transfers under the NTS started. The department and the Home Office are working together on plans to exit the hotels accommodating unaccompanied asylum seeking children as soon as possible.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress his Department has made on the establishment of a National Implementation Board in response to the Independent Review of Children's Care; and if his Department will publish details of the (a) composition and (b) membership of that board.
Answered by Brendan Clarke-Smith
Work is currently underway to establish the National Implementation Board, which will be composed of people with experience of leading transformational change, as well as people with their own experience of the care system. The department will hold the first meeting and commit to publishing a membership list in due course. We have also committed to publishing a readout from each board, which will be made available online.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to help ensure that children from families in receipt of Universal Credit receive free school meals.
Answered by Will Quince
Under the benefits-related criteria the department provides a free healthy meal to around 1.9 million children, ensuring they are well nourished and can concentrate, learn and achieve. We also spend around £600 million per year ensuring around 1.25 million infants enjoy a free, healthy and nutritious meal at lunchtime following the introduction of the Universal Infant Free School Meal policy in 2014.
Schools fund benefit-related free school meals (FSM) from their core funding which they receive through the schools block of the dedicated schools grant and is derived from the national funding formula. For 2022-23, the funding schools attract through the 'FSM factor' in the national funding formula (NFF) is increasing to £470 per eligible pupil. The per meal rate for Universal Infant Free School Meals was increased in 2022-2023 to £2.41.
Under this government, eligibility has been extended several times and to more groups of children than any other government over the past half a century, including the introduction of universal infant free school meals and further education FSM. The department has permanently extended eligibility to children from all groups with no recourse to public funds.
The number of pupils eligible for FSM has been increasing since 2018, when we introduced new eligibility criteria for Universal Credit families that was estimated to increase the number of free school meal pupils by 2022. Alongside this, we also introduced generous protections that meant no child would lose their free school meal eligibility as a result of this criteria change and throughout the rollout of Universal Credit.
We want to make sure as many eligible pupils as possible are claiming their FSM, and to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility. To support this:
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 23 June 2022 to Question 18916 on Children: Asylum, if he will ask the Children's Commissioner to provide a written update on that issue; and if he will make it his policy to place a copy of the response in the Library of both Houses.
Answered by Will Quince
This is a matter for the Children’s Commissioner. Given her independence, the hon. Member for South Shields will need to contact her directly.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information his Department holds on the number of times that the Children's Commissioner has visited hotels which are accommodating unaccompanied asylum seeking children.
Answered by Will Quince
As an executive non-departmental public body, the department does not hold the requested information regarding specific visits by the Children’s Commissioner.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2022 to Question 140453 on Children: Care Homes, how many complaints were received by Ofsted for each children’s home provider, not national figures, in England in (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20 and (c) 2020-21.
Answered by Will Quince
This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2022 to Question 140453 on Children: Care Homes, if she will publish all incident notifications received by Ofsted for incidents of (a) a missing child, (b) emergency services called and (c) illness for each children’s home provider, not overall national figures, in 2020-21 in England.
Answered by Will Quince
This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish all incident notifications received by Ofsted for incidents of (a) a missing child, (b) emergency services called and (c) illness for each children’s home provider in 2020-2021 in England.
Answered by Will Quince
This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to the hon. Member for South Shields and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many complaints were received by Ofsted for each children’s home providers in England in (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20 and (c) 2020-21.
Answered by Will Quince
This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to the hon. Member for South Shields and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made on the effectiveness of fast-track social work programmes.
Answered by Will Quince
Investing in the social workers of the future is essential to building a profession that is best able to protect and care for vulnerable children and families.
The Frontline and Step Up to Social Work fast-track programmes demonstrate clear value for money and effectiveness in supporting the government’s commitment to improving the recruitment and retention of social workers. Both programmes account for an increasing proportion of postgraduate social work enrolments. Investment in fast-track social work programmes, alongside university social work education, supports local authority social worker recruitment by providing top quality training to candidates who may not have previously considered social work as a career.
An evaluation of Frontline, conducted by Cardiff University and published in March 2016, found Frontline participants to be highly skilled in their practice quality. The report is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/frontline-pilot-independent-evaluation.
A further study, undertaken by Cardiff University to track the retention and progression of Frontline and Step Up to Social Work graduates, found no evidence that attrition rates for fast-track trained social workers at 18 months after qualification are higher than they are for social workers trained via mainstream programmes. The report also found that social workers trained by fast-track programmes demonstrate good progression and high job satisfaction. The final report was published in December 2021 and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-work-fast-track-programmes-tracking-study.