Fiona Mactaggart
Main Page: Fiona Mactaggart (Labour - Slough)Department Debates - View all Fiona Mactaggart's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is right to emphasise how difficult life is for many social workers at the front line. Part of the problem rests with the complicated process that we inherited, which the revision of “Working Together” attempts to address. The space or gap between the initial and subsequent assessments that children at risk of abuse or neglect have to face is one of the changes addressed through the Munro recommendations. However, we also need to change how local safeguarding children boards operate and to make sure that the capacity of the social work profession to cope with the challenges thrown at it is greater. That is being addressed through the College of Social Work and the additional support that we hope to give through the launch of the Frontline programme.
Fiona Mactaggart
T2. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
On Friday, I was absolutely delighted to publish details of the allocation of money that we are giving to local authorities to help them meet the need for additional pupil places, including in local authority areas such as Slough.
Fiona Mactaggart
I am glad of the money for extra places, because we need them.
I want to ask the Secretary of State about his permanent secretary’s response at a Public Accounts Committee hearing last week. The permanent secretary said that everything that the Department for Education does is early intervention. Yet the National Audit Office report reveals that 40% of newly sentenced prisoners had been permanently excluded from school. What is the Department doing to prevent the failure in attainment among those 40%?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that there is an iron-clad link between under-achievement at school and the likelihood of someone’s becoming known to the criminal justice system.
The most important thing that we can do is address the particular problem that so many young men have in learning to read properly and in acquiring the qualifications that will give them good jobs. The changes we are making to the national curriculum, to Ofsted and in particular to how literacy is assessed at the end of primary school and through GCSE are all intended to ensure that young men do not continue to be failed.