Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions her Department has had with the Teachers Pension Scheme on delays in providing Remediable Service Statements to retired teachers.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Delays have been encountered with the approach to calculating the remediable service statement (RSS) values for retired members of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme whilst cross-scheme issues were resolved.
130,000 retired teachers require a rectification RSS. The scheme administrator estimates that approximately 100,000 will be issued by 31 March 2025.
Whilst the delays have been out of the scheme administrator’s control, the department continues to have daily discussions about reducing the timescales for the RSSs that will not have been issued by then, focusing on operations, resources, processes and IT. Progress is also discussed with the administrator, Teachers’ Pensions, at dedicated weekly and monthly meetings.
Whilst the department is working to ensure that all RSSs are issued as soon as practically possible, the department would like to reassure that any adjustment to pension that is in payment as a result of the member’s choice will be inclusive of interest.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of secondary schools have an exclusion policy for packed lunches and snacks.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold statistics on the proportion of primary schools or secondary schools that have an exclusion policy for packed lunches and snacks.
School governing boards are responsible for setting their school food policies, including food brought in from home.
The school food standards regulate the food and drink provided at both lunchtime and at other times of the school day. The standards restrict foods high in fat, salt and sugar, which includes snacks and confectionary high in fat, sugar and salt. Compliance with the school food standards is mandatory for maintained schools, academies and free schools.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of primary schools have an exclusion policy for packed lunches and snacks.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold statistics on the proportion of primary schools or secondary schools that have an exclusion policy for packed lunches and snacks.
School governing boards are responsible for setting their school food policies, including food brought in from home.
The school food standards regulate the food and drink provided at both lunchtime and at other times of the school day. The standards restrict foods high in fat, salt and sugar, which includes snacks and confectionary high in fat, sugar and salt. Compliance with the school food standards is mandatory for maintained schools, academies and free schools.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Children’s Wellbeing Bill will include provisions to help schools provide up to date allergy awareness education for pupils and staff.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children’s Wellbeing Bill will ensure our education and children’s social care systems transform life chances for millions of children and young people in England.
The precise content of the Bill will be confirmed upon the Bill’s introduction, which will be as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions, including allergies.
The accompanying statutory guidance ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’ makes clear to schools what is expected of them in taking reasonable steps to fulfil their legal obligations and to meet the individual needs of pupils with medical conditions. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3. Schools should ensure they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and have policies and processes in place to ensure these can be well managed. Policies should set out how staff will be supported in carrying out their role to support pupils, including how training needs are assessed and how training is commissioned and provided. Any member of school staff providing support to a pupil with medical needs should have received suitable training.
From September 2020, relationships education became compulsory for all primary school-aged pupils, relationships and sex education compulsory for all secondary school-aged pupils, and health education compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools in England. The statutory guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.
This guidance states that by the end of primary school, pupils should be taught the facts and science relating to allergies, immunisation and vaccination.
The department is currently reviewing the relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, has been clear that children’s wellbeing must be at the heart of this guidance for schools. As such the department will look carefully at the consultation responses, discuss with stakeholders and consider the relevant evidence before setting out next steps.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 October 2024 to Question 6377 on Children in Care, whether her Department plans to collect data on the number of children removed from a family who have previously had a child removed from their care.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises the need to improve the data available about children’s social care, including making it more relevant to the experience of children, young people and families. A core part of this work includes understanding the data needs of the children’s social care sector as a whole and scoping ways in which data gaps may be addressed over time.
Existing statutory data is captured about the child and does not capture the complex nature of families such as those where siblings do not live in the same family home. Addressing data gaps in children’s social care will be a long-term endeavour due to the need to agree data definitions and standards, as well as to redesign local authority and departmental systems before rolling out nationally.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the (a) voices and (b) experiences of birth parents who have experienced the removal of children from their care are included in (i) policymaking and (ii) service provision in the children's social care system.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to engaging widely with those with lived experience of children’s social care, as well as all interested stakeholders, to help us drive the right change and scale up good practice in children’s social care across the country.
Hearing the views of those with lived experience of children’s social care and responding to their recommendations is an important part of national and local children’s social care policy development and delivery. At a national level, the department has parents, including birth parents, and carers who sit on strategic advisory boards and policy reference groups covering different aspects of children’s social care reform policy. We have also engaged parents and families on consultations on children’s social care reform. The Supporting Families programme and the Families First for Children Pathfinder also ensure children and families’ voices inform service design and delivery.
The department recognises there is more to do, and we continue to explore ways to grow and develop our ongoing engagement with those with lived experience of children’s social care, including parents and families.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential (a) merits and (b) financial savings of increasing investment in support for parents following the removal of a child from their care to prevent repeat removals.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to whole-system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve. We recognise that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention and whole family working to support families with multiple issues before they reach crisis point, to stay together and thrive. This is at the heart of our reform agenda to rebalance the children’s social care system toward earlier intervention, which is aimed at improving families’ lives today, their outcomes in the future, and reducing costs to public services.
Central to this ambition is testing a new model of Family Help which builds on best practice from well-evidenced programmes such as Supporting Families and Pause, which feature whole-family working and lead practitioners providing dedicated support to prevent re-referrals.
The independent evaluation of the Supporting Families programme showed improved outcomes and positive returns on investment where every £1 spent on the programme delivered £2.28 of benefits. It also found a reduction of one third in the likelihood of children going into care two years after joining the programme, as well as reduced youth and adult crime, reduced domestic abuse, reduced benefits claims, reduced substance misuse, improved mental health, improved school attendance and reduced exclusions (evaluated between 2015 and 2020).
Through the Families First for Children Pathfinder and Family network pilot the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole-family support in 10 pathfinder local authorities, where multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks, involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage, and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home. The pathfinder is being independently evaluated. Early evaluation findings are expected in spring 2025.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that parents receive appropriate support after children are removed from their care to prevent recurrence.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to whole-system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve. We recognise that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention and whole family working to support families with multiple issues before they reach crisis point, to stay together and thrive. This is at the heart of our reform agenda to rebalance the children’s social care system toward earlier intervention, which is aimed at improving families’ lives today, their outcomes in the future, and reducing costs to public services.
Central to this ambition is testing a new model of Family Help which builds on best practice from well-evidenced programmes such as Supporting Families and Pause, which feature whole-family working and lead practitioners providing dedicated support to prevent re-referrals.
The independent evaluation of the Supporting Families programme showed improved outcomes and positive returns on investment where every £1 spent on the programme delivered £2.28 of benefits. It also found a reduction of one third in the likelihood of children going into care two years after joining the programme, as well as reduced youth and adult crime, reduced domestic abuse, reduced benefits claims, reduced substance misuse, improved mental health, improved school attendance and reduced exclusions (evaluated between 2015 and 2020).
Through the Families First for Children Pathfinder and Family network pilot the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole-family support in 10 pathfinder local authorities, where multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks, involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage, and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home. The pathfinder is being independently evaluated. Early evaluation findings are expected in spring 2025.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to prevent the recurrence of child removals from the same families.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to whole-system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve. We recognise that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention and whole family working to support families with multiple issues before they reach crisis point, to stay together and thrive. This is at the heart of our reform agenda to rebalance the children’s social care system toward earlier intervention, which is aimed at improving families’ lives today, their outcomes in the future, and reducing costs to public services.
Central to this ambition is testing a new model of Family Help which builds on best practice from well-evidenced programmes such as Supporting Families and Pause, which feature whole-family working and lead practitioners providing dedicated support to prevent re-referrals.
The independent evaluation of the Supporting Families programme showed improved outcomes and positive returns on investment where every £1 spent on the programme delivered £2.28 of benefits. It also found a reduction of one third in the likelihood of children going into care two years after joining the programme, as well as reduced youth and adult crime, reduced domestic abuse, reduced benefits claims, reduced substance misuse, improved mental health, improved school attendance and reduced exclusions (evaluated between 2015 and 2020).
Through the Families First for Children Pathfinder and Family network pilot the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole-family support in 10 pathfinder local authorities, where multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity.
These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks, involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage, and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home. The pathfinder is being independently evaluated. Early evaluation findings are expected in spring 2025.
Asked by: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children entering care each year are from a family who have previously had a child removed from their care.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is unable to answer the question. We only collect data on individual children and do not collect data on families.