Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department conducted an equality impact assessment prior to the decision to withdraw funding for non-specialist disabled students' allowance software.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department made the decision to remove non-specialist spelling and grammar software from the disabled students’ allowance (DSA) funding on the grounds that there are now free-to-access versions available with the required functionality to meet students’ disability-related support needs. It is therefore not an effective use of public money to continue to fund this type of software through the DSA. Full details of the policy change are available at: https://www.practitioners.slc.co.uk/media/2070/ssin-spelling-and-grammar-software.pdf.
The department conducted an equality impact assessment prior to the decision, which is attached to this response.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons her Department has withdrawn funding for non-specialist disabled students' allowance software.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department made the decision to remove non-specialist spelling and grammar software from the disabled students’ allowance (DSA) funding on the grounds that there are now free-to-access versions available with the required functionality to meet students’ disability-related support needs. It is therefore not an effective use of public money to continue to fund this type of software through the DSA. Full details of the policy change are available at: https://www.practitioners.slc.co.uk/media/2070/ssin-spelling-and-grammar-software.pdf.
The department conducted an equality impact assessment prior to the decision, which is attached to this response.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of families unable to access the Support for Families with Disabilities grant scheme due to oversubscription in 2024-25.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all families with children and young people with disabilities receive the right support, regardless of socio-economic background. The Supporting Families with Disabled Children programme provides individual grants to around 60,000 low-income families raising a disabled or seriously ill child to support with the additional costs that families can face.
Where families experience challenges, the department signposts available support from the family’s local Information, Advice and Support Service. This is independent of the local authority and can provide impartial advice about local special educational needs and disabilities arrangements and support for children’s needs.
In addition, the department also signposts families to Contact, a national charity for families with disabled children, which provides information, advice and support, and brings families together to support each other.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make the data on the use of symptomatic FIT for patients with suspected bowel cancer symptoms across each ICB publicly available.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the data at an integrated care board level, however, data for the number of lower gastrointestinal referrals, at a practice level, with a Faecal Immunochemical Test attached, is publicly available through the Investment and Impact Fund. It can be found in the monthly data by the following codes: CAN03; and CAN04.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on funding for future teacher pay increases.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government is committed to supporting schools to deliver on the opportunity mission, as shown by the funding increases seen in the core schools budget grant for 2024/25 and at the Autumn Budget 2024, in the context of a challenging fiscal picture. Planning for the multi-year spending review is taking place across government, and the department will provide further updates on funding for schools in due course.
Pay for teachers and leaders in maintained schools is set through an annual statutory process with independent recommendations made by the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB). Each year the STRB recommends a pay award based on different factors, including the economy, school workforce data and evidence from organisations including the department, employers and the teaching unions. The government then considers the recommendations in depth and decides on the pay award teachers receive for the coming year.
Final decisions on the teacher’s pay award for 2025 will be made following recommendations from the independent pay review body process.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of Lifelong Links on (a) children and young people in care and (b) care leavers.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Stable support networks and loving relationships are crucial to supporting children in care and helping care leavers to thrive.
The department launched the family finding, befriending and mentoring programme in 2023. It is testing a range of programmes that seek to enable children and young people to connect with the important people in their lives, improve their sense of identity and community, and help them create and sustain consistent, stable and loving relationships. We are currently funding 50 programmes across 45 local authorities, and this includes 23 Lifelong Links programmes.
The family finding, befriending and mentoring programme is subject to a formal evaluation, with an initial report due later this year. The evaluation will help us understand the impacts for children in care and care leavers and assess the practicability of extending family finding and befriending and mentoring programmes in the future.
My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the overall settlement for the department for the 2025/26 financial year, providing additional funding for core schools, early years and children’s social care, amongst other areas. We are actively working to finalise the details of the 2025/26 budgets, including funding for the family finding, befriending and mentoring programme.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of (a) family finding, (b) befriending and (c) mentoring programmes.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Stable support networks and loving relationships are crucial to supporting children in care and helping care leavers to thrive.
The department launched the family finding, befriending and mentoring programme in 2023. It is testing a range of programmes that seek to enable children and young people to connect with the important people in their lives, improve their sense of identity and community, and help them create and sustain consistent, stable and loving relationships. We are currently funding 50 programmes across 45 local authorities, and this includes 23 Lifelong Links programmes.
The family finding, befriending and mentoring programme is subject to a formal evaluation, with an initial report due later this year. The evaluation will help us understand the impacts for children in care and care leavers and assess the practicability of extending family finding and befriending and mentoring programmes in the future.
My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the overall settlement for the department for the 2025/26 financial year, providing additional funding for core schools, early years and children’s social care, amongst other areas. We are actively working to finalise the details of the 2025/26 budgets, including funding for the family finding, befriending and mentoring programme.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will extend funding for (a) family finding, (b) befriending and (c) mentoring programmes to 2025-26.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Stable support networks and loving relationships are crucial to supporting children in care and helping care leavers to thrive.
The department launched the family finding, befriending and mentoring programme in 2023. It is testing a range of programmes that seek to enable children and young people to connect with the important people in their lives, improve their sense of identity and community, and help them create and sustain consistent, stable and loving relationships. We are currently funding 50 programmes across 45 local authorities, and this includes 23 Lifelong Links programmes.
The family finding, befriending and mentoring programme is subject to a formal evaluation, with an initial report due later this year. The evaluation will help us understand the impacts for children in care and care leavers and assess the practicability of extending family finding and befriending and mentoring programmes in the future.
My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the overall settlement for the department for the 2025/26 financial year, providing additional funding for core schools, early years and children’s social care, amongst other areas. We are actively working to finalise the details of the 2025/26 budgets, including funding for the family finding, befriending and mentoring programme.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to review regulations allowing police forces to remove officers suspected of gross misconduct.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
In October last year, the Home Secretary announced a package of reforms to strengthen police misconduct.
That included a presumption of dismissal for proven gross misconduct, specified criminal offences automatically amounting to gross misconduct, and a presumption of accelerated hearings for former officers.
These changes to regulations are expected to be laid as soon as practicable in the coming months
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to (a) support the Summer Reading Challenge and (b) help increase the number of children reading for pleasure.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
High and rising school standards, with excellent foundations in reading, writing and mathematics, are at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life. We know that reading for pleasure is hugely important and brings a range of benefits, with strong links to attainment.
The department welcomes the Reading Agency’s work on the Summer Reading Challenge, which has been going from strength to strength now for a quarter of a century. This has helped thousands of young people to read more and to improve their reading skills.
The government has implemented a range of measures to support reading for pleasure. The English Hubs programme supports the teaching of phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure, with £23 million committed for the 2024/25 academic year to support this work. Furthermore, the government’s reading framework provides guidance on improving the teaching of reading, to ensure that every child is not only able to read proficiently but also develops a genuine love of reading.
On 5 February, the government announced a £2 million investment to drive high and rising standards in reading and writing. Building on the success of phonics, teachers will receive additional training to help children progress from the early stages of phonics in reception and year 1 through to reading fluently by the time they leave primary school. This will be delivered through the English Hubs programme.
In secondary schools, teachers will be offered new training and resources this year to help them support readers at all levels, and next year the department will commission further training that will be focused specifically on struggling readers in secondary school who are at risk of falling behind.
The current national curriculum states that teachers are expected to encourage pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.
The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, which will look closely at the key challenges to attainment for young people, in line with the government’s ambition for a curriculum that delivers excellent foundations in reading, writing and mathematics.