Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to announce the ten pilot areas for the Kinship Care Allowance.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children, and the role local authorities have in supporting them.
The government has recently announced a £40 million package to trial a new Kinship Allowance in up to ten local authorities, to test whether paying an allowance to cover the additional costs of supporting the child can help increase the number of children taken in by family members and friends.
The department will share further details on the process for selecting local authorities in due course.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many seafarer apprentices were in training in 2023-24.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Latest figures for the 2023/24 academic year show that there have been 50 starts on the Level 2 Seafarer (deck rating) apprenticeship standard.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the cost for introducing free school meals for all primary school children.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government has not made a formal assessment of the cost of providing free school meals to all primary school children.
The department is separately committed to introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary school to ensure children are set-up for the day and ready to learn.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing a financial allowance to kinship carers equal to that received by foster carers.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to working in partnership with local government to support children in care, whether they are being looked after by their community of wider kinship care, foster carers and adoptive parents, or being cared for in children’s homes, if this is the best place for them to be. The department recognises many challenges kinship cares experience, including the financial challenges that many kinship carers face. The government is considering how to most effectively transform the children’s social care system so that it can deliver better support and outcomes for children and families. This will include considering how best to support kinship carers and children in kinship care.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her Department's policy is on the potential merits of trialling a kinship care allowance.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to working in partnership with local government to support children in care, whether they are being looked after by their community of wider kinship care, foster carers and adoptive parents, or being cared for in children’s homes, if this is the best place for them to be. The department recognises many challenges kinship cares experience, including the financial challenges that many kinship carers face. The government is considering how to most effectively transform the children’s social care system so that it can deliver better support and outcomes for children and families. This will include considering how best to support kinship carers and children in kinship care.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 19 January 2024 to Question 8408 on Offences against Children, whether she plans to take further steps with Cabinet colleagues to incorporate Article 19 into UK legislation (a) in non-online contexts and (b) other than through the Online Safety Act 2023.
Answered by David Johnston
The government remains committed to protecting and upholding children’s rights. The department is confident that existing domestic legislation gives effect to the rights within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child, including Article 19.
The Children Act 1989 and Children Act 2004 set out a range of duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Furthermore, the government’s multi-agency statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ is clear that children at risk of or experiencing harm from within or outside their home must receive the support they need, recognising harms may arise from school, peer groups, online or the wider community. This guidance was updated in December 2023 to strengthen multi-agency working across the whole system of help, support and protection. More information on the guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2.
Importantly, the department introduced new national multi-agency child protection standards setting out what every individual, at every level, in every agency should do to work together and understand their role, to improve child protection practice and outcomes for children. The department has also strengthened expectations about the role of other agencies, including police and health, in child protection processes.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an estimate of the number of SMEs that have recruited (a) 10, (b) between 10 and 20, (c) between 30 and 40 and (d) more than 50 apprentices since April 2023.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The below table shows the breakdown of non-levy paying employer accounts, often small and medium-sized enterprises, that have recruited more than ten apprentices since April 2023.
Number of starts since April 2023 (grouped) | Number of non-levy employer accounts |
10 | 90 |
11-19 | 214 |
20-29 | 33 |
30-39 | 6 |
40-49 | 1 |
50+ | 2 |
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 18 December 2023 to Question 6458 on Special Educational Needs: County Durham, whether she is providing additional resources to Durham County Council to meet demand for Education, Health and Care plans.
Answered by David Johnston
County Durham are part of the department's Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme. DBV aims to work with selected authorities to review how services are structured and delivered to achieve better outcomes for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in a sustainable way. The DBV programme achieves this by helping each of the participating local areas complete a diagnostic to work out the root causes of their challenges and identify local opportunities to sustainably improve the outcomes and experiences of the children and young people with SEND in their care.
On completion of their diagnostic, Durham created an action plan to address their key local challenges and implement service reforms; based on this the department provided grant funding of £1 million to support the delivery of their plans.
Durham County Council have also been involved with the Targeted Performance Improvement programme which has supported them with embedding Ordinarily Available Provision.
In addition, SEND funding to the Local Authority of County Durham has increased by 35% to £94 million over the past three years.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 December 2023 to Question 5246 on Special Educational Needs: County Durham, what interim support is available to families waiting for an Education, Health and Care plan to be issued.
Answered by David Johnston
Durham County Council publish information on their Local Offer outlining what support is available for children, young people and their families in County Durham. This information is available here: https://www.durham.gov.uk/localoffer. The Durham Local offer outlines Durham’s approach to Special Education Needs and Disabilities in schools and the graduated approach.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 December 2023 to Question 5246 on Special Educational Needs: County Durham, if he will make it his policy to conduct an investigation into why the rate of Education, Health and Care plans excluding exceptions issued within 20 weeks in County Durham reduced from 76.2% in 2021 to 29.2% in 2022.
Answered by David Johnston
Through the work of the department’s Regions Group, the department is working closely with Durham County Council to understand the reasons why the rate of Education, Health and Care plans excluding exceptions issued within 20 weeks has reduced. The department will work with the local area to monitor the issuing of completed plans and support them in to improving this rate.