Fabian Hamilton

Jisc is an independent nonprofit company that supports universities with the transition to open access. It does this through negotiating a range of transitional open access agreements and institutional access to journal publications. These agreements enable UK research output to be published open access in accordance with UK funder policies.

Jisc will negotiate new agreements with publishers on behalf of the sector in 2025. This will focus on pace of change to open access models, the financial sustainability of agreements, and equity to enable a wider audience to benefit including researchers, small specialist institutions and public health organisations.

The department works closely with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) on a wide range of matters to ensure the education system is supporting healthcare students, including student funding.

The government needs to ensure that the student funding system is financially sustainable, and funding arrangements are reviewed each year. We will continue to engage with the DHSC to consider the financial support that medical students receive.

Students attending the fifth and sixth years of undergraduate medical courses and years 2 to 4 of graduate entry medical courses qualify for NHS bursaries. The government has announced an increase to all NHS bursary maintenance grants and allowances for the 2025/26 academic year by forecast inflation, 3.1%, based on the Retail Price Index (RPIX) inflation index.

Medical students qualifying for NHS bursary support also qualify for non-means tested loans for living costs from the department. The government has announced that maximum loans for living costs for the 2025/26 academic year, including reduced rate non-means tested loans for students undertaking NHS bursary years, will also increase by 3.1%.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

Local authorities are responsible for transport to education and training for 16-19 year olds. Post-16 transport guidance requires local authorities to make the necessary transport arrangements or provide financial support to ensure young people can participate in education or training. The needs of young people with SEND should be specifically considered and the arrangements put in place for each group must be documented in local authority transport policy statements.

In addition to their statutory responsibilities, many local authorities do offer some form of subsidised transport which, combined with the 16-19 bursary, has been intended to provide financial support to students from low-income households. These decisions are best made locally, in consideration of local needs, the resources available and other local circumstances.

Apprenticeships are a great way for individuals to begin or progress a successful career in the hairdressing industry.

There have been over 135 starts in hairdressing and barbering apprenticeships within the Leeds local authority across the 2023/24 academic year and the 2024/25 academic year, up until January 2025.

To support smaller employers access apprenticeships, the government pays full training costs for young apprentices aged 16 to 21, and for apprentices aged 22 to 24 who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan, or have been in local authority care. Employers can benefit from £1,000 payments when they take on apprentices aged 16 to 18, or apprentices aged 19 to 24 who have an EHC plan or have been in local authority care.

Employers also benefit from not being required to pay anything towards employees’ National Insurance contributions for all apprentices aged up to age 25 where they earn less than £50,270 a year.

The overall budget for the adoption and special guardianship support fund (ASGSF) will be £50 million in the 2025/26 financial year, which has not been reduced from in the 2024/25 financial year. The changes made to the criteria for the ASGSF will enable the budget to be utilised by more children and families. This will ensure that each child can still access a significant package of support required for individual children and help to prevent breakdown of adoptive placements. Children who have previously been supported by the ASGSF can continue to access the fund under the new arrangements. The department always considers the impact of decisions on vulnerable children.

The department is committed to ensuring value for money and continuously evaluates contracts. Regular reviews are conducted to assess effectiveness. The ASGSF management contract has undergone open re-procurement during its term of operation. The department assess all its tenders on their merits, with the sourcing strategy for this service following Green Book guidance. We will also be reviewing the most effective and efficient way of managing the fund in future years.

The overall budget for the adoption and special guardianship support fund (ASGSF) will be £50 million in the 2025/26 financial year, which has not been reduced from in the 2024/25 financial year. The changes made to the criteria for the ASGSF will enable the budget to be utilised by more children and families. This will ensure that each child can still access a significant package of support required for individual children and help to prevent breakdown of adoptive placements. Children who have previously been supported by the ASGSF can continue to access the fund under the new arrangements. The department always considers the impact of decisions on vulnerable children.

The department is committed to ensuring value for money and continuously evaluates contracts. Regular reviews are conducted to assess effectiveness. The ASGSF management contract has undergone open re-procurement during its term of operation. The department assess all its tenders on their merits, with the sourcing strategy for this service following Green Book guidance. We will also be reviewing the most effective and efficient way of managing the fund in future years.

The overall budget for the adoption and special guardianship support fund (ASGSF) will be £50 million in the 2025/26 financial year, which has not been reduced from in the 2024/25 financial year. The changes made to the criteria for the ASGSF will enable the budget to be utilised by more children and families. This will ensure that each child can still access a significant package of support required for individual children and help to prevent breakdown of adoptive placements. Children who have previously been supported by the ASGSF can continue to access the fund under the new arrangements. The department always considers the impact of decisions on vulnerable children.

The department is committed to ensuring value for money and continuously evaluates contracts. Regular reviews are conducted to assess effectiveness. The ASGSF management contract has undergone open re-procurement during its term of operation. The department assess all its tenders on their merits, with the sourcing strategy for this service following Green Book guidance. We will also be reviewing the most effective and efficient way of managing the fund in future years.

End of key stage 1 national curriculum tests and teacher assessments have been non-statutory since the 2023/24 academic year.

Following the 2017 consultation on primary assessment, a decision was made by the previous administration to make these assessments optional to reduce the overall number of tests children have to take in primary school and move the baseline for primary school progress measures from key stage 1 to reception. The Standards and Testing Agency continues to develop test papers for schools to use on an optional basis as part of their ongoing assessment of pupils.

The phonics screening check is the only statutory assessment administered to pupils in key stage 1. This is a short, light-touch assessment which assesses pupils’ ability to decode and read words using phonics.

In respect of future assessment policy and associated arrangements, the government has established an independent curriculum and assessment review, covering key stages 1 to 5, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE, an expert in education policy. The national curriculum assessments administered to primary pupils are in scope of this review, which will look at whether the current assessment system can be improved.

Supporting our expert education workforce is critical to this government’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for children and young people at every stage.

Improving the wellbeing of staff in the education sector, including teachers, is key to this. The department is working in partnership with the sector, and mental health experts, to make commitments to improve staff mental health and wellbeing and boost retention.

These commitments include the creation of the education staff wellbeing charter which sets out shared commitments to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff in schools and colleges. The charter can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter.

The charter can be used to inform a whole school or college approach to wellbeing or to develop a staff wellbeing strategy. So far, over 3,900 schools and colleges have signed up to it. In January 2024, the department published a progress report on its commitments in the charter, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-staff-wellbeing-and-teacher-retention.

The department is funding mental health and wellbeing support for school and college leaders, which includes professional supervision and counselling for those who need it. More than 2,000 leaders have benefitted from the support so far. Support continues to be available and can be accessed by visiting the Education Support website, which can be found at: https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/.

The department has made available a range of resources to help schools address teacher workload issues, prioritise staff wellbeing and support schools to introduce flexible working practices. For example, the department’s improve workload and wellbeing for school staff service, which was developed alongside school leaders, includes a workload reduction toolkit to support schools to identify opportunities to cut excessive workload. More information about this service can be found here: https://improve-workload-and-wellbeing-for-school-staff.education.gov.uk/.

The department also recently clarified that planning, preparation and assessment time can be done from home. The department has also removed the requirement for performance related pay and bureaucracy that went with it and has abolished one-word Ofsted judgements to deliver a system which provides better information for parents and is proportionate for staff.

Fair pay is key to ensuring teaching is an attractive and respected profession, which is why this government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from September 2024. This will be fully funded at a national level.

School support staff play a vital role in all our schools. They are crucial to ensuring we give children the best possible life chances and the department wants to ensure they are paid fairly for the work they do. This is why the department set out its plans to reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) through the Employment Rights Bill, which was introduced on 10 October. Establishing the SSSNB will help ensure that schools can recruit and retain the staff needed to deliver high-quality, inclusive education.

Additionally, to boost recruitment and retention of teachers, the department has agreed to double the targeted retention incentive from 2024/25, which will give eligible early career teachers in key science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and technical shortage subjects, working in disadvantaged schools and in all colleges, up to £6,000 after tax annually, on top of their normal pay.

The government does not set or recommend pay in further education (FE) providers, which have the freedom to make their own arrangements in line with their local circumstances.

This government recognises the vital role that FE teachers and providers play in equipping learners with the opportunities and skills that they need to succeed in their education and throughout life.

That is why the October Budget set out the government’s commitment to skills, by providing an additional £300 million revenue funding for FE to ensure young people are developing the skills this country needs. The department will set out in due course how this funding will be distributed.

This government is committed to driving economic growth and supporting opportunity for all, and further education (FE) is central to this. The government is providing the additional £300 million for FE to ensure young people are developing the skills they need to succeed and a further £300 million to support colleges to maintain, improve and ensure suitability of their estate. The department will set out how the additional funding will be distributed in due course.

The department’s long term intention is to reform the early years system as the foundation of opportunity and life chances for children. Giving children the best start in life is key to the government’s Opportunity Mission. We will consider what reforms, if any, and what consultation are necessary, and then set out our vision for reforming the early years sector next year.

The department’s long term intention is to reform the early years system as the foundation of opportunity and life chances for children. We will set out our vision for reforming the early years sector next year.

The department does not hold data on the proportion of schools that celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history month.

Schools are free to decide which events to commemorate and what activities to put in place to support pupils’ understanding of significant events and particular months or days dedicated to specific communities, such as the Gypsy, Roma, Traveller history month in June.

Schools are already able to teach about Gypsy, Roma and Travellers’ history as part of offering a broad and rich curriculum, for example, through subjects such as history and citizenship. Resources are available from experts in the communities themselves and bodies such as the Historical Association.

The department publishes annual data from the SEN2 survey in relation to every educational, health and care plan maintained by individual local authorities.

The department closely monitors the information from the annual SEN2 data collection and uses it to inform discussions with local areas.

Where a council does not meet its duties, the department can take action that prioritises children’s needs and supports local areas to bring about rapid improvement. The department offers a range of universal, targeted and intensive support through department’s managed programmes, such as the Sector Led Improvement Partners which provide peer-to-peer tailored support.

Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission introduced a strengthened area special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) inspection framework in January 2023 leading to a greater emphasis on the outcomes being achieved for children and young people. It is the primary tool to maintain a focus on high standards in the SEND system across all partners.

The department is committed to tackling all forms of prejudice, including religious prejudice, and education is a key component of building a fairer and more equal society.

As part of a broad and balanced curriculum, there are many opportunities in the existing curriculum for schools to teach about islamophobia, including through:

• Citizenship education, which is compulsory at key stages 3 and 4, and teaches about religious diversity, mutual respect and understanding.
• Relationships education, which is compulsory in all schools, and teaches about the impact of prejudice and the importance of respect.
• Religious education, which is compulsory in all state-funded schools, and educates about religious tolerance.

The department’s ‘Educate Against Hate’ campaign also provides teachers, school leaders and parents with guidance, advice and trusted resources to help them safeguard students from radicalisation and build students’ resilience to all forms of extremism. Further information can be found here: https://www.educateagainsthate.com/.

The government will keep the effectiveness of this approach under review and will consider the issue further in the Curriculum and Assessment Review.

The department is committed to tackling antisemitism and all forms of prejudice. Education is a key component of building a fairer and more equal society.

As part of a broad and balanced curriculum, there are many opportunities in the existing curriculum for schools to teach about antisemitism, including through:

• Citizenship education, which is compulsory at key stages 3 and 4, and teaches about religious diversity, mutual respect and understanding.
• Relationships education, which is compulsory in all schools, and teaches about the impact of prejudice and the importance of respect.
• Religious education, which is compulsory in all state-funded schools, and educates about religious tolerance.

Young people should be taught the history of the Holocaust. Effective Holocaust education, and learning about other genocides, supports pupils to learn about the possible consequences of antisemitism and other forms of extremism and to help reduce the spread of antisemitism, religious intolerance and other forms of intolerance and extremism.

The department has been supporting greater understanding of the Holocaust by providing funding to the Holocaust Educational Trust to provide the Lessons from Auschwitz programme, and to UCL Centre for Holocaust Education which provides a programme of continuing professional development for teachers.